Celebrants who Use the Jewish Priestly Blessing Posture during the Lord's Prayer/Our Father

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AustinGM

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I studied for one year at a small Catholic liberal arts college nearby to where I am from until I decided that it was not for me and I moved to another country entirely. During my time there I regularly served for a priest who was also one of my professors whom I at first thought for the first few months was surely a raving mad liberal lunatic but looking back the man is actually quite conservative in opposition to the other priest who was also serving at this institution. Several things that lead me to this conclusion including: he did not use an altar bell which is quite popular in other quarters of my home diocese, he did not use a missal stand on the altar, read prayers from a lectern instead of having me hold the missal in front of him to read from which I had never seen anywhere else before but only knew as an option mentioned in the GIRM (I thought of this quite exotic and I could not understand why he was not using me to the best of my serving abilities), he almost always used the third form of the penitential rite (which can be justified because it was a later accretion into the Mass as it was originally a preparatory prayer) purifying the sacred vessels on the credence table instead of on the altar which was more common practice in other quarters of our diocese (his justification was that one does not do the dishes in front of the guests), only ever using two candles near the altar and never two upon it but always to the sides (it is said that this is a practice from Low Mass but for the Jewish Sabbath only two candles are used except for the Menorah which Eastern churches usually use in some of and its use by the Neocatechumenal Way) , he only used incense for adoration (should have been a huge indicator that he was not a raving mad lunatic liberal priest), I also had to translate passages from the Summa out of Latin into English. The thing that I found to be the most strange was the posture that he would presume during the Lord’s Prayer, I quickly recognised it as the Jewish Priestly Blessing posture and I can guarantee you that I was shocked every time until I finally just stopped looking a him during the Lord’s Prayer. I thought that he may have had Jewish ancestors or had some sort of “Jewish connection” as so to say. This was however not the case at at all. He told me that he was taught to assume this posture from the Sulpician seminary in Paris where he studied. I even asked him if he came from a Jewish priestly family (which sort of scandalised me at the time) which was not the case and why he was to assume this position. He told me something like that it was a Jewish prayer (which it does carry many similarities to Jewish prayer and is a Jewish prayer because Jesus was a Jew) and that we should do it as a sign of the Jewish continuity of our religion and as memorial of this because of the Holocaust/Shoah among other things that presently do not come to my mind. I was wondering if anyone else in the forums has personally seen this or know someone who has and what is your opinion about it?
 
AustinGM said:
I quickly recognised it as the Jewish Priestly Blessing posture
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What is that, exactly? I thought it was similar to the orans posture. Or do you mean with his fingers held apart, like Leonard Nimoy as Spock in Star Trek?
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I assume he means precisely that.

The priestly benediction is given with fingers arranged like that.

I believe Roddenberry had Spock do it as a tribute to his Jewishness.

Deacon Christopher
 
You sometimes see it on Jewish gravestones.

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It is peculiar, however as that posture would be used by (Jewish) priests to give a blessing. Also used by the father presiding at a Seder meal.

Whereas the Orans posture is as ancient as Christianity, with images of people in prayer with this posture fund in the catacombs.

But the Lord’s Prayer using the orans is an invocative prayer to the Father. The priestly benediction would be a blessing from God, to the people.

Different directions.
 
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Yes, with one of the variants spellings of the priestly family.
 
Both hands like this, Spock’s posture is actually inspired from this posture a long with his proverb of sorts “live long and prosper.” On a side note the Vulcans from Star Trek practiced logic sort of like a religion and we see this more in the Enterprise series and also gather that there were debates as to what constituted orthodoxy and orthopraxis amongst the Vulcans in regards to their sort of Logic Religion. I would describe the priest’s hands in the confrontational orans with the hands elevated but facing towards the nave as opposed to the heavens which is my personal preference when using the orans posture. Look at the photographs from this Wikipedia article Wikipedia Description of the Priestly Blessing Posture His hands were separated like in the normal orans as opposed to many of the depictions like this, his hands were not tilted together. (Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
With all due respect deacon, I am not exclusively talking about Star Trek here but an action that is occurring during the Sacred Liturgy which is the “source and summit of faith.”
 
That’s a very odd thing for a priest to do when he’s celebrating Mass. Surely very few people in the congregation would be aware of the Jewish connection, while quite a lot of people would naturally think he was imitating Spock in Star Trek, and find it comic.
 
Yes, very peculiar.

I am not sure which bothers me more - the confusion of the direction of prayer, the syncretism of disparate religions . . . or that most people would know more about Star Trek and Spock than kohanim!
 
I am aware of this but for those of this that do know what this posture is I was wondering if anyone else has seen it applied in the same or in a similar context which I had witnessed it. I personally think and know that there are worse things that could be going on during Mass to turn it into a mess instead of a Mass. My personal worsts are those congregations where they force everyone to gather around the altar and hold hands during the Lord’s Prayer. I think that this posture is innocent in comparison to other such practices.
 
I think @Diaconia means that in the orans posture, the priest is supposed to hold his hands with the palms facing upward. And syncretism is jumbling up elements of different religions, in this case Jewish and Christian forms of worship.

When we first moved to the parish where we live now, the parish administrator who was temporarily in charge wanted the whole congregation to hold hands for the Our Father, all along every row. Nearly everyone did that, including my wife and me. Then a new pastor was appointed and he wanted it done differently. Now nearly everyone in the congregation, including us, uses the orans posture. I’m okay with it either way. The priest is the boss and I do what I’m told.
 
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Whoa, slow down, you are making large jumps. I specifically mentioned continuity and stated that the Lord’s Prayer is indeed a Jewish prayer. If one pops open any Siddur one will quickly recognise many similarities and less disparities between the prayers of their’s and ours. However, we do begin with a trinitarian invocation and different doxological endings. Where do you think that our religion comes from? The whole liturgy of the Word could almost be extracted from some synagogue service somewhere in history and in some oriental churches they are laid out and organised much like a synagogue.( I say this because Jewish liturgy has evolved over the years much like our own but they wanted to distance themselves from us more than we did them liturgically at least)I do not have an axe to grind it is that I just see so much lack of mutual understanding and the Church sees itself in many ways as the New Jerusalem and New Zion which many modern Jews would disagree with but I digress. One cannot in good conscious be a Catholic and an antisemite. Christianity and more specifically Apostolic Christianity (in the sense of the churches that have apostolic succession and not the so-called "Apostolic denominations) is the fulfilment of Judaism until the Messiah returns. But this whole post is getting off track. I will anyway go ahead and make a comment on the whole orans posture. I think that it is acceptable as it is in some countries like Italy itself and some dioceses but on the other hand I am aware of a bishop who has banned it from his diocese in the context of the Lord’s Prayer during Mass. Holding hands when being forced is not my thing and I would much prefer it to be natural and only during certain other services as it is not exactly a posture of prayer that has been handed down to us through the centuries and by traditions that I am aware of.
 
I have occasionally attended synagogue worship with Jewish friends, but only in a Chabad synagogue where the service is entirely in Hebrew, except for the homily. As a result, I have only a pretty vague notion of the words that are actually being spoken or sung. The similarity that impressed me most was the kiddush, eating the bread and drinking the wine that have been blessed by the rabbi, effectively Holy Communion but served sitting around a table after the service is over.
 
Aha, I have a Reform Jewish prayer book in Hebrew and German (a language that I understand). The Lord’s Prayer is like a condensed version of some of those prayers or short snippets from everyone of them or a paraphrase of certain parts of them. The language used in the Lord’s Prayer is very Jewish to saw the least. The Sanctus is also regularly used in Jewish prayers and services. They use the Sanctus like we would the Lord’s Prayer for almost everything. I was quite surprised. Yes the celebration of the Eucharist like something straight from the Kiddush. I think the closest thing to it would be the Carmelite Mass celebrated with only one candle but the Kiddush candle has multiple wicks but then again we use multiple candles. Yeah, for me the Mass is a sacrifice and a meal. I mean I can kind of see where people are going with the idea that it is a Paschal meal but it is just not at the same time but I think that this leads us back to a more liberal versus conservative agenda. I am a Catholic and therefore a universalist. As long as it can be baptised as so to say then it is good to go for me. Polish Catholics have a similar practice at Christmas with Oplatki. It is also something that I see as being related to Kiddush but I think its practice may have something more to do with antidoron instead.
 
The Missal rubric immediately before the Lord’s Prayer says: “The Priest, with hands extended says, and all present continue:” How he should hold his fingers is not stated. GIRM states:
42. The gestures and bodily posture of both the Priest, the Deacon, and the ministers, and also of the people, must be conducive to making the entire celebration resplendent with beauty and noble simplicity, to making clear the true and full meaning of its different parts, and to fostering the participation of all. Attention must therefore be paid to what is determined by this General Instruction and by the traditional practice of the Roman Rite and to what serves the common spiritual good of the People of God, rather than private inclination or arbitrary choice.
That would seem to rule out unusual gestures, but I can’t see it’s an issue for excommunication.
 
Nobody here is suggesting excommunication, are they? The two most telling objections, I think, are that syncretism is best avoided, as @Diaconia noted in his post #11, and that many people in the congregation might find it comic or ridiculous, because of the Star Trek connection.
 
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