PRAYER OVER THE CHRISM WITH WHICH THE BAPTIZED
ARE ANOINTED
God of powers, aid of every soul that
turns to You and comes under Your powerful hand in our Only-begotten, we
beseech You, that through Your divine and invisible power of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, You may effect in this chrism a divine and heavenly
operation, so that those baptized and anointed in the teaching with it of the
sign of the saving cross of the Only-begotten, through which cross Satan and
every adverse power is turned aside and conquered, as if reborn and renewed
through the bath of regeneration, may be made participants in the gift of the
Holy Spirit, and confirmed by this seal, may remain firm and immovable,
unharmed and inviolate. . . . (The Sacramentary of Serapion 25.1-2, c. A.D. 350, The Faith of the Early Fathers, 3
vols. [trans. William A. Jurgens; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press,
1979], 2:133)