Ending the Year of Faith

Today's Feast of Christ the King ends the Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI. The closing Mass in St Peter’s Square included exposition, for public veneration, of the bones of St. Peter. Eight bone fragments were in an open bronze reliquary displayed to the side of the altar.

In 1971, Paul VI was given an urn containing the relics, which were kept inside the private papal chapel inside the Apostolic Palace and exhibited for the pope's private veneration each June 29, for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. Sunday marked the first time they were shown in public.

During the ceremony, the Pope – the 265th successor of Peter – held the closed reliquary for several minutes in silent prayer while choirs sang the Nicene Creed in Latin. The bones, which were discovered during excavations of the necropolis under St Peter’s Basilica had never been displayed in public.

“When Jesus is at the centre, light shines even the darkest moments of our lives; he gives us hope,” Pope Francis said in his homily.

At St. Columbkille, to mark the end of the Year of Faith we are renewing our Baptismal Promises.

Renewal of Baptismal Promises: (replaces Creed)

Priest:

Brothers and sisters,
through the Paschal Mystery
we have been buried with Christ in Baptism,
so that we may walk with him in newness of life.
And so, as the Year of Faith comes to an end,
let us renew the promises of Holy Baptism,
by which we once renounced Satan and his works
and promised to serve God in the holy Catholic Church.

(Congregation should be standing.)

And so I ask you:

Priest:  Do you renounce sin,
          so as to live in the freedom of the children of God?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you renounce the lure of evil,
          so that sin may have no mastery over you?
ALL:  I do.

Priest:  Do you renounce Satan,
          the author and prince of sin?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you believe in God,
          the Father almighty,
          Creator of heaven and earth?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
          who was born of the Virgin Mary,
          suffered death and was buried,
          rose again from the dead
          and is seated at the right hand of the Father?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: Do you believe in the Holy Spirit,
          the holy Catholic Church,
          the forgiveness of sins,
          the resurrection of the body
          and life everlasting?
ALL:  I do.

Priest: And may almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
          who has given us new birth by water and the Holy Spirit
          and bestowed on us forgiveness of our sins,
          keep us by his grace,
          in Christ Jesus our Lord,
          for eternal life.

ALL:  AMEN.