  We compute the self energies of the baryon octet and decuplet states at the
one-loop level applying the manifestly covariant chiral Lagrangian. It is
demonstrated that expressions consistent with the expectation of power counting
rules arise if the self energies are decomposed according to the
Passarino-Veltman scheme supplemented by a minimal subtraction. This defines a
partial summation of the chiral expansion. A finite renormalization required to
install chiral power counting rules leads to the presence of an infrared
renormalization scale. Good convergence properties for the chiral loop
expansion of the baryon octet and decuplet masses are obtained for natural
values of the infrared scale. A prediction for the strange-quark matrix element
of the nucleon is made.
