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Saturday, December 12, 2009

I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND! Not Just a Beatle's Song

First Fr. McDonald's Comments
Having been asked to blog something on holding hands at Mass, I copy the following for you written by Fr. Edward McNamara. I think it is very good. He also addresses people holding their hands as the priest does during the recitation of the Lord' Prayer. I did not know that the Italian Conference of Bishops had allowed the laity to join the priest in what many feel belongs exclusively to the priest. Fr. McNamara's comments are very good in this regard also.

Keep in mind though, that in the Diocese of Savannah, Bishop Boland has asked that hand holding during prayer at Mass be discontinued because of the fear of escalating the spread of the H1N1 pandemic.


Liturgy: Holding Hands at the Our Father?
11/19/2003 - 7:00 AM PST



ROME, NOV. 18, 2003 (Zenit) - Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum.


Q: Many say we should not be holding hands in the congregation while reciting the Lord's Prayer because it is not a community prayer but a prayer to "Our Father." Local priests say that since the Vatican has not specifically addressed it, then we are free to do as we please: either hold hands or not. What is the true Roman Catholic way in which to recite the Lord's Prayer during Mass? -- T.P., Milford, Maine

A: It is true that there is no prescribed posture for the hands during the Our Father and that, so far at least, neither the Holy See nor the U.S. bishops' conference has officially addressed it.

The argument from silence is not very strong, however, because while there is no particular difficulty in a couple, family or a small group spontaneously holding hands during the Our Father, a problem arises when the entire assembly is expected or obliged to do so.

The process for introducing any new rite or gesture into the liturgy in a stable or even binding manner is already contemplated in liturgical law. This process entails a two-thirds majority vote in the bishops' conference and the go-ahead from the Holy See before any change may take effect.

Thus, if neither the bishops' conference nor the Holy See has seen fit to prescribe any posture for the recitation of the Our Father, it hardly behooves any lesser authority to impose a novel gesture not required by liturgical law and expect the faithful to follow their decrees.

While there are no directions as to the posture of the faithful, the rubrics clearly direct the priest and any concelebrants to pray the Our Father with hands extended -- so they at least should not hold hands.

One could argue that holding hands expresses the family union of the Church. But our singing or reciting the prayer in unison already expresses this element.

The act of holding hands usually emphasizes group or personal unity from the human or physical point of view and is thus more typical of the spontaneity of small groups. Hence it does not always transfer well into the context of larger gatherings where some people feel uncomfortable and a bit imposed upon when doing so.

The use of this practice during the Our Father could detract and distract from the prayer's God-directed sense of adoration and petition, as explained in Nos. 2777-2865 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in favor of a more horizontal and merely human meaning.

For all of these reasons, no one should have any qualms about not participating in this gesture if disinclined to do so. They will be simply following the universal customs of the Church, and should not be accused of being a cause of disharmony.

A different case is the practice in which some people adopt the "orantes" posture during the Our Father, praying like the priest, with hands extended.

In some countries, Italy, for example, the Holy See has granted the bishops' request to allow anyone who wishes to adopt this posture during the Our Father. Usually about a third to one-half of the assembled faithful choose to do so.

Despite appearances, this gesture is not, strictly speaking, a case of the laity trying to usurp priestly functions.

The Our Father is the prayer of the entire assembly and not a priestly or presidential prayer. In fact, it is perhaps the only case when the rubrics direct the priest to pray with arms extended in a prayer that he does not say alone or only with other priests. Therefore, in the case of the Our Father, the orantes posture expresses the prayer directed to God by his children.

The U.S. bishops' conference debated a proposal by some bishops to allow the use of the orantes posture while discussing the "American Adaptations to the General Instruction to the Roman Missal" last year. Some bishops even argued that it was the best way of ridding the country of holding hands. The proposal failed to garner the required two-thirds majority of votes, however, and was dropped from the agenda.

12 comments:

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

I know, I know, it gets pretty bad when a blogger comments on his own blog, but I just had a insight while I was in the shower singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Just who are the people who became the priests, nuns, liturgists and members of liturgy committees that starting instituting hand holding at Mass? They are me, baby boomers who remember the Beatles on Ed Sullivan singing I want to hold your hand. We loved that song. I'm on the younger end of Baby Boomers, many others of my generation are older and we are the ones who thought holding hands at prayer and Mass was nifty, cool, out of sight, and you just got to dig it.

Who would have thought that the Beatles were the premier liturgists of our generation leading the Church into such a great liturgical trip, like man wow!
Fr. Allan J. McDonald, who loves to let his hair hang down!

Robert Kumpel said...

Well, now that we've had 30 years of holding hands, I'm ready to Get Back and just Let It Be.

Anonymous said...

“Do You Want To Know A Secret?” --“I’ll Be Glad All Over” the day hand-holding at Mass is “Long, Long, Long” gone!

How fun and easy.


REGINA DÉCOR CARMELI

Gene said...

The second the Beatle's had their first hit, music and culture went to Hell. They were the beginning of the angry, urban, narcissistic sound. Even their early stuff was angry underneath..."She Loves You" sounds like, "She loves you, yah, yah, yah," almost like a jeer.
The White Album was nothing but nihilism. In, "Let IT Be," you never know if Mother Mary is marijuana or the Virgin Mary (I suspect the former). Not to mention that none of them could sing.

Anonymous said...

Blasphemy!

Gene said...

Mea culpa!

Anonymous said...

I was at Mass with my child wondering still wondering what to tell my her while you wiseguys were engaged in Beatle bashing.

Still don't know what to teach her....

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

From Fr. McDonald:

In this article, the good Monsignor states that the laity could join the priest in the "orantes" position, that is of lifting one's arms in prayer at the Our Father. He states that the rubric for the priest in the Lord's prayer is odd because this is a prayer that he does not say alone (a priestly or presidential prayer) which usually demands the priest lifting his arms. Therefore the laity could join the priest.
However, in the 1962 missal or the Tridentine Mass, the recitation or singing of the Lord's prayer was a priestly prayer that was not said or sung by the laity until "but deliver us from evil." At that point the priest drops his arms.

Interesting, no? So the lifting of the priest's arms during the Lord's Prayer is in fact a priestly gesture and was exclusive to him in the Tridentine Mass.

Gene said...

That kind of nonsense comes from the charismatic crowd, who are suspect in every case. They have turned worship, in both Protestant and Catholic churches, into a spectacle of meaningless gibberish, hand waving, feel good, self-indulgent personal apocalypse, add-your-favorite- fruit epiphanies. There were a couple of early Church heresies based on just this kind of nonsense, the Enthusiast heresy being one...all such stuff tends to Gnosticism, and it never completely went away. Hey! Ya'll, your "feelings" and subjective moments of intuition are not determinative or efficacious with regard to God's presence. So, quit holding hands and wiggling around and worship with the rest of us who seek Him in the communal worship of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist.

Templar said...

I would have less heartburn with the congregation standing in the orantes position if the Priest were leading us in prayer (i.e. facing the altar) and not facing the congregation. I close my eyes during the spectacle to avoid seeing all those so standing looking at the Priest and not up.

I think it is telling that in the 1962 MR Father notes the congregation is silent during the Pater Noster until the very end. To me that is clear as the nose on our faces that we shouldn't be "participating" in the orantes position because we shouldn't be participating at all.

Robert Kumpel said...

I couldn't help but notice a Dave Clark Five song got slipped in here somewhere.

Anyway, I always loved the Beatles. Maybe they were angry, hedonistic nihilists (or, as in Lennon's case, narcissistic jerks), but they were very talented and entertaining when they played together. Perhaps the most relevant religious observation one might make about the group is that the one Catholic, George Harrison, ended up in some kind of quasi-Hindu cult.

All this is making me feel even guiltier than normal about my OTHER favorite band: Led Zeppelin!

God have mercy on me.

Gene said...

"Forgive me Fr. for I have sinned...I listened to Led Zeppelin records all morning...."