Baptisms During the Mass

[Phemie]

We do it all the time, and the few minutes it takes is barely noticeable. The Creed is omitted when there is a Baptism, and that shortens things somewhat. Usually Father does the opening of the Baptismal rite at the back of the church before the procession, so that cuts some time too. And if there is a reason to be really conscious of a few minutes, the music director can choose shorter music. But this isn’t really necessary. I have never heard anyone complain, and since they vary Masses , if someone minds a few extra minutes, they can go to another Mass. Most people love to see the babies.

For 16 years our parish has been celebrating Baptism at Mass. Children were brought to the font in regular clothes, white garment presented at the proper time, child taken to the side and dressed in white garment while a baptismal hymn is sung then brought back for Presentation of Light & Ephpheta Rite.

New priest arrived in July. “It takes too long and I’m not comfortable with making Mass so long for the people. Tell parents to dress their babies in white before they come to church.” A whole 10 minutes. Somehow I doubt that he’ll accommodate the parents who wish to have their babies baptized by immersion, something we’ve offered for the same 16 years.

 

[otjm]

There are people who are alive in Christ and seek to worship Him as bet they can, and then there are Catholics whose focus seems to be on “fulfilling their obligation”, and will you please not take up any more of my precious time that the minimum.

 

[Herculees]

I have a question. Can a priest refuse to do a Baptism DURING the Mass? I know that if I was a priest, then I would have no problems administering the Sacrament of Baptism either before the Mass or after the Mass, but with the exception of the Easter Vigil Mass, I would not want to do a Baptism DURING the Mass.

Some dioceses require that the sponsor’s receive instruction prior to a baptism which would not have been done if you spontaneously request baptism.

 

[buc_fan33]

Why does everyone presume that having a baptism during Mass will take more time? A carefully-enough planned homily, and the (prescribed) omission of the Creed means that you can easily enough have a baptism and yet not run longer than a regular Sunday Mass!

I’m going to have to disagree with you here. In my experience, having a baptism during Mass adds at least fifteen minutes. The omission of the Creed saves about one, but if you do the entire Rite of Baptism, meaning the interrogations before Mass, the anointing with the Oil of Catechumens, the laying on of hands, the blessing of water, the profession of faith and renunciation of sin, the baptism itself, the clothing with a white garment, the lighting of the baptismal candle, the exorcism, the ephetha rite, and the post-baptismal anointing (I realize this is out of order…just jotting them down as I think of them), plus the solemn blessing at the end of Mass using the form given in the Rite of Baptism for Children, it’s an easy fifteen minutes.

I suppose you could shorten the homily, but if anything, I want to use the homily as an opportunity to catechize the people, and especially remind the parents, that the obligation they are accepting is to bring their children up to practice the faith. That means Mass EVERY Sunday and HDO, without exception, regular Confession, Confirmation at the appropriate age, catechesis, a life of prayer, and finally, a life of service.

 

[otjm]

I’m going to have to disagree with you here. In my experience, having a baptism during Mass adds at least fifteen minutes. The omission of the Creed saves about one, but if you do the entire Rite of Baptism, meaning the interrogations before Mass, the anointing with the Oil of Catechumens, the laying on of hands, the blessing of water, the profession of faith and renunciation of sin, the baptism itself, the clothing with a white garment, the lighting of the baptismal candle, the exorcism, the ephetha rite, and the post-baptismal anointing (I realize this is out of order…just jotting them down as I think of them), plus the solemn blessing at the end of Mass using the form given in the Rite of Baptism for Children, it’s an easy fifteen minutes.

I suppose you could shorten the homily, but if anything, I want to use the homily as an opportunity to catechize the people, and especially remind the parents, that the obligation they are accepting is to bring their children up to practice the faith. That means Mass EVERY Sunday and HDO, without exception, regular Confession, Confirmation at the appropriate age, catechesis, a life of prayer, and finally, a life of service.

Thank you for your note that a baptism will take an additional 15 minutes.

And for those who complain or the additional time - well! I can understand! They would have to give up an addition 1/672nd of their week, sitting in church! Imagine the degree of sacrifice!

 

[ConfusedLucy]

Thank you for your note that a baptism will take an additional 15 minutes.

And for those who complain or the additional time - well! I can understand! They would have to give up an addition 1/672nd of their week, sitting in church! Imagine the degree of sacrifice!

I personally wouldn’t mind if I had notice. I often meet up with or host people on a Sunday and would be happy to adjust my plans to allow for a longer mass. I would not be happy to leave my mother standing outside in the rain with no way of contacting me.

From the point of view of the family of the baptized I don’t know if they would be keen on this. I remember my own extended family saying how tacky they thought it was to have to share a baptism service with 3 other families. There is definitely the expectation of having a service all to yourself.

 

[otjm]

I personally wouldn’t mind if I had notice. I often meet up with or host people on a Sunday and would be happy to adjust my plans to allow for a longer mass. I would not be happy to leave my mother standing outside in the rain with no way of contacting me.

From the point of view of the family of the baptized I don’t know if they would be keen on this. I remember my own extended family saying how tacky they thought it was to have to share a baptism service with 3 other families. There is definitely the expectation of having a service all to yourself.

Poor catechesis is hardly an excuse for continuing the same problem - poor catechesis.

And I don’t know how you schedule things - perhaps you schedule them so tightly that a traffic problem of 15 minutes would leave everyone standing. Me - I never plan to have anyone that close to when Mass lets out, baptism or no baptism. But that is a problem easily solved.

 

[Phemie]

I personally wouldn’t mind if I had notice. I often meet up with or host people on a Sunday and would be happy to adjust my plans to allow for a longer mass. I would not be happy to leave my mother standing outside in the rain with no way of contacting me.

From the point of view of the family of the baptized I don’t know if they would be keen on this. I remember my own extended family saying how tacky they thought it was to have to share a baptism service with 3 other families. There is definitely the expectation of having a service all to yourself.

Our 3 children were all baptized outside of Mass. The first two were baptized at my childhood parish in a ceremony which took place immediately after the Sunday Mass. Youngest was baptized at our military parish in a mid-afternoon ceremony.

As it happened, there were no other children being baptized at the ceremonies for our oldest and youngest; their brother, OTOH, was one of 5 or 6 receiving the sacrament on the day he was baptized. There was no difference in how solemn or happy the occasion was. In fact, sharing it with other families seemed to make it more of a “parish family” occasion.

As for parishes that only celebrate Baptism outside of Mass, most that I’m familiar with have a set time at which they do this and there is no guarantee that families will have what they call “a private Baptism.” Many of those ceremonies will involve multiple families.

We have a small parish, about 400 families, many of them middle-aged or elderly couples. We generally only see about 20-25 baptisms per year but I’ve still seen some Sundays with 4 or 5 baptisms during one Mass. It all depends on who is ready for Baptism at a given time and how many young people who moved away are returning home to have their children baptized – just like I did 38 & 36 years ago.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Thank you for your note that a baptism will take an additional 15 minutes.

And for those who complain or the additional time - well! I can understand! They would have to give up an addition 1/672nd of their week, sitting in church! Imagine the degree of sacrifice!

:clapping:

 

[buc_fan33]

Thank you for your note that a baptism will take an additional 15 minutes.

And for those who complain or the additional time - well! I can understand! They would have to give up an addition 1/672nd of their week, sitting in church! Imagine the degree of sacrifice!

Oh, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Phemie]

Thank you for your note that a baptism will take an additional 15 minutes.

And for those who complain or the additional time - well! I can understand! They would have to give up an addition 1/672nd of their week, sitting in church! Imagine the degree of sacrifice!
buc_fan33;14651390:

Oh, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination.

I always want to say to those who complain in my parish, “Relax! So you’re going to get to Tim Hortons 15 minutes later than usual. You’ll still get there before the rush. The Anglican, Pentecostal, and UCC services only started 15 minutes ago.”

 

[ConfusedLucy]

I’ve no objection to spending some additional time at mass but I was always taught to respect other peoples time. Like many I work full time and have friends and family who live long distance and therefore will often arrange to see people on Sunday. Rearranging plans so I can attend mass is no problem but it’s not nice to mess people about when you can avoid it.

I’m not saying I agree with my extended family but it was the first baptism the family had celebrated in approx 25 years and it surprised them. Most of them don’t go to church and probably expect it to be like the church of their youths.

That said I imagine in the past there was more overlap between the parish and peoples family and friends.

 

[ThundersnowIV]

For 16 years our parish has been celebrating Baptism at Mass. Children were brought to the font in regular clothes, white garment presented at the proper time, child taken to the side and dressed in white garment while a baptismal hymn is sung then brought back for Presentation of Light & Ephpheta Rite.

New priest arrived in July. “It takes too long and I’m not comfortable with making Mass so long for the people. Tell parents to dress their babies in white before they come to church.” A whole 10 minutes. Somehow I doubt that he’ll accommodate the parents who wish to have their babies baptized by immersion, something we’ve offered for the same 16 years.

He is correct. And he is the pastor.

 

[ThundersnowIV]

There are people who are alive in Christ and seek to worship Him as bet they can, and then there are Catholics whose focus seems to be on “fulfilling their obligation”, and will you please not take up any more of my precious time that the minimum.

This isn’t about the minimum. And who are you to judge people’s intentions?

The Mass is about the Eucharist. The Mass can take all day for that!

 

[Kielbasi]

Baptism is not a “private” thing. We are welcoming, in most cases, a child into the community. WE should not practice our faith in a vacuum, and when Baptisms are done, as a general rule, outside of Mass, I think we are forgetting the fact that we are Community.
)

To look at the other side, however, baptisms attract people from other communities and cuts those people off from their community during those weeks. Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Cas are unable to make it to their own parish church on Sunday morning if they are needed to drive across town to attend little Michael’s baptism on Sunday.

Having the baptism in church outside of mass can be better for parking, better for the visitors, and has a lot of logistic advantages.

 

[ThundersnowIV]

:clapping:

I am just amazed that people miss the main point of Mass.

 

[ThundersnowIV]

To look at the other side, however, baptisms attract people from other communities and cuts those people off from their community during those weeks. Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Cas are unable to make it to their own parish church on Sunday morning if they are needed to drive across town to attend little Michael’s baptism on Sunday.

Having the baptism in church outside of mass can be better for parking, better for the visitors, and has a lot of logistic advantages.

Be prepared to be slammed

 

[Oneofthewomen]

I am just amazed that people miss the main point of Mass.

Nobody is missing that the Eucharist is the source & summit of our faith,
but community worship is also a big part of it.
The problem is, without Baptisms, our faith is not growing.

I see no issue with having Baptisms during Mass. I actually like it, and it never seems to add more than 10-15 minutes to Mass.

That said, I would not like it to happen at every Mass, every week, but then, I know of no parish in my diocese that is growing that quickly.

 

[JanetF]

Nobody is missing that the Eucharist is the source & summit of our faith,
but community worship is also a big part of it.
The problem is, without Baptisms, our faith is not growing.

I see no issue with having Baptisms during Mass. I actually like it, and it never seems to add more than 10-15 minutes to Mass.

That said, I would not like it to happen at every Mass, every week, but then, I know of no parish in my diocese that is growing that quickly.

Agree with this. I don’t think it happens in my parish even once a month at the Noon mass. As far as making plans after mass, due to various other unexpected extensions of the mass time I never make plans to meet anyone until at last 1 1/2 hours after mass starts, between additional funding requests throughout the year one never knows if mass will last an hour or an hour and 15, so why risk it. Even better, I’ll invite whoever I’m meeting to go to Mass with me and problem solved

While Mass may not be about Baptism, Baptism is a sacrament of the faith and is a time for the parish to welcome new members into the community so I’m fine with having them during mass. Our priest doesn’t let the baptism take away from the main reason we are there.

 

[ThundersnowIV]

Nobody is missing that the Eucharist is the source & summit of our faith,
but community worship is also a big part of it.
The problem is, without Baptisms, our faith is not growing.

I see no issue with having Baptisms during Mass. I actually like it, and it never seems to add more than 10-15 minutes to Mass.

That said, I would not like it to happen at every Mass, every week, but then, I know of no parish in my diocese that is growing that quickly.

I understand what you are saying. The problem I see is that whether in Mass or outside of Mass…baptisms often do not indicate a growth of the parish community. For many it is a formality only. Many do not return to Mass again…till perhaps Christmas or Easter.