As Catholics, we all agree with the Church that the Holy Eucharist is the unity of the Catholic Church because nothing is greater than Jesus’ true presence. Holding hands has no prescribed place in the Holy Mass, so it is a distraction. As a Catholic I have the right – the RIGHT, under Canon law – to have all the sacraments celebrated properly and without distractions. People interrupting my participation in the distinctly public prayer of the Mass to insist I behave in conformity with their insistence on this un-sanctioned innovation, rather than conforming their wills to the spirit of the rubrics, have no right to distract me or anyone that way.
I think people insist on adding this to the Mass because they feel they can get away with it. License justified, and feel is the operative word.
The only real unity of the Holy Mass is the Eucharist. Catholic Christian unity is not among ourselves. We don’t control or enable it by gestures like holding hands. It can only be with and through the Eucharistic Christ, truly present on the altar, and truly becoming our food and drink. Otherwise, we are NOT members of the mystical body of Christ, but just a room full of people holding hands, congratulating ourselves on our friendliness. God enables our unity in the Eucharist. We are blessed to follow, not to lead, nor to innovate as we feel.
Absolutely everything else in the Mass relates directly to Jesus. How does everyone adopting the “Kumbaya Posture” relate to Jesus? It is not a licit nor valid part of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It doesn’t belong, so please don’t bring it in. This is what draws me to agree with the Bishop’s opinion of this practice as “childish.” Children want what they want precisely because they do not or will not understand more than what they want. When they are told “no” they often whine or have a tantrum.
The orans posture itself, which seems to be the impulse or “justification” behind this invented holding hands business–wherever it came from-- itself IS biblical in origin. The brothers of Moses held up his arms so their army could win the battle. In terms of one’s private piety, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER WRONG with praying in the orans posture, nor with holding hands during private prayer – outside of the Mass.
But the Mass is emphatically not private, but is public. To anyone who attends this public act, we MUST give the good example of a sign of unity with the Eucharistic Christ as members of His Mystical Body, by conforming ourselves with our whole minds, our whole souls, our whole selves, and our whole strength, not exclusively with EACH OTHER through an uninvited symbolic innovation, bolted onto the Mass by our wilfulness, but truly and substantially with the Eucharistic Christ in full obedience to His Church, through our disciplined obedience of the rubrics of our worship in the Mass.
To say “that’s not good enough, so I’m adding more” amounts to a denial of the sufficiency of the Mass for worship as provided by our holy Mother Church, guided and protected from error by the Holy Spirit. Who are we, as the laity, to say, “I will improve upon the Mass by adding the missing ingredients I feel it needs.”
We obey what the rubrics say, AND ALSO what they do not say. We seek to follow BOTH the spirit AND the letter of the laws of our Church, out of love and respect for Christ and his divine will. We don’t seek to justify our innovation by citing lack of explicit exclusion: a legalistic maneuver through a loophole. Some children and especially rebellious teenagers try to do that all the time.
Catholics who try to conscript others into confirmity with their will for private piety, rather than to the will of the Church in complete devotion to the Eucharistically present Christ, are creating a distraction in the public Mass by their wilfillness in this holding hands thing. They give scandal which is bad example.
The Liturgical moment of Our Lord’s Prayer in the Holy Mass is not about creating an outward symbol of unity among ourselves, it’s about joining with Christ in the reality of his True Presence on the Altar to make us mystically one with and in HIM – not just physically AMONG OURSELVES. The priest, an alter Christus, leads our prayer. We are to follow, as the Apostles did. We’re not supposed to form our own association separate from Christ. Not even symbolically–not even by accident or “accident.”
The Orans posture in the Mass – IN THE MASS – is reserved to the priest because in the context of the Sacraments, he functions as an alter Christus: “another Christ.” Away from the Real Presence, hold hands saying the Lord’s Prayer all you want! There’s no problem with using it outside the Mass.
The Eucharist is our greatest unity. Nothing, not even all of us holding hands can add to that, and it can be perceived by some as “the point” of the Mass, which would be a great error.
Christ leads our prayer to the Father, and we his children follow, we do not seek to lead – neither each other nor anyone else, symbolically or otherwise. Holding hands during the Lord’s prayer in the Holy Mass has no rightful or even logical place, and therefore insistence upon it is nothing more than a wilful expression of the self, seeking to “enhance” or “correct” the perfection of Jesus present at the Lamb’s Supper.
When someone gestures to me to grab their hand during Mass, I smile and gesture with my folded hands towards the altar.
do not have dark motives! And certainly I still hold hands of kids, old folks, mentally challenged people, etc., etc.
