"Dancing" during the liturgy

[ekblad7]

This past Sunday in mass our “ministry in motion” did a little dance type thing during the psalm and again after Communion. I know it’s wrong but can’t find the specific documentation to prove it. Can anyone help? Or is it not officially wrong? TIA

 

[Fidei_Defensor]

Answer: no. Dancing during the liturgy is forbidden in the Roman Rite. The following is an excerpt from an authoritative publication of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments:
ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDWDANCE.HTM

Here dancing is tied with love, with diversion, with profaneness, with unbridling of the senses: such dancing, in general, is not pure. For that reason it cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever: that would be to inject into the liturgy one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements; and so it would be equivalent to creating an atmosphere of profaneness which would easily recall to those present and to the participants in the celebration worldly places and situations.

 Neither can acceptance be had of the proposal to     introduce into the liturgy the so-called artistic ballet[2] because there would be     presentation here also of a spectacle at which one would assist, while in the liturgy one     of the norms from which one cannot prescind is that of participation.

 Therefore, there is a great difference in cultures:     what is well receieved in one culture cannot be taken on by another culture.

 The traditional reserve of the seriousness of     religious worship, and of the Latin worship in particular, must never be     forgotton.

 If the proposal of the religious dance in the West is     really to be made welcome, care will have to be taken that in its regard a place be found     outside of the liturgy, in assembly areas which are not strictly liturgical. Moreover, the     priests must always be excluded from the dance.

 

[viktor_aleksndr]

There is a dance that is allowed by the vatican i dont remember how they call them but it sounds like “cultural dancing” but it is only applicable to those people in which tribal dancing is a norm such as in Africa and other tribal places. These dancing can be done during offering but not in part where attention and solmenity will be affected such as when eucharistic prayers are started.

But again liturgical dancing is never to be found in the church’s documents that it is being allowed. If you have read the statement of Cardinal Arinze during his visit in the US it was stated there some abuses in the holy mass.

 

[msproule]

This link contains some of the details of Cardinal Arinze’s interview:

adoremus.org/Dance.html

 

[PiusXIII]

ekblad7:

This past Sunday in mass our “ministry in motion” did a little dance type thing during the psalm and again after Communion

What kind of dance? I can’t picture such a thing.

 

[ekblad7]

Hmm - kind of like a standing in place but doing things with their arms and hands (almost looked like exagerated sign language)

 

[tom.wineman]

**That is known as the Jack Lalanne aerobics service. **Very popular now days

 

[mcliffor]

ekblad7:

Hmm - kind of like a standing in place but doing things with their arms and hands (almost looked like exagerated sign language)

I remember seeing something like this done to base hymns being sung in the background at a diocese convention. I was a kid, but remember being very disturbed, because even though the Bishop was smiling, it just didn’t seem reverent or right.

It reminds me of when some churches replace the silk and gold altar veils with something that the kids made in CCD with felt and glue. Nice expressions of faith but they have no place in the liturgy.

 

[thistle]

ekblad7:

Hmm - kind of like a standing in place but doing things with their arms and hands (almost looked like exagerated sign language)

I don’t know whether what took place is an abuse or not but I’m not sure it was dancing. Doesn’t dancing by definition involve movement of the feet as well as the body and arms. Standing still can’t be a dance, can it?

 

[Elzee]

**That is known as the Jack Lalanne aerobics service. **Very popular now days

There’s a priest in our area who has hand motions to the Our Father he strongly encourages everyone to do. It ends with everyone holding hands. I call it ‘liturgical hand dancing’. I and a few others politely bow our heads and keep our hands to ourselves.

 

[netmilsmom]

Elzee:

There’s a priest in our area who has hand motions to the Our Father he strongly encourages everyone to do. It ends with everyone holding hands. I call it ‘liturgical hand dancing’. I and a few others politely bow our heads and keep our hands to ourselves.

God Bless you for bowing. I would break into hysterical laughter and find another Mass!

Kumbaya!