Hands folded together for prayer at Mass

[allhers]

Patrick, ask your Pastor if you can get copies of the G.I.R.M. for your Parish for people to buy after Mass, (they are real inexpensive each.) Or perhaps he could put something in the bulletin about them being available at the Religious Article’s counter if your Church has one, to try to encourage them to take them home and read them.
Or ask him if maybe at some function you could bring it up on the proper way to teach people to do things at Mass. You are already doing the right things yourself, with lots of prayer maybe by your example they will follow.

Or find a new Parish.

 

[GregoryDracula]

Someone had mentioned the Our Father. I was raised this way as well, as were my parents. We still keep our hands folded in prayer at the Our Father, which gets some strange looks from others when they all hold hands, but the Clergymen always seem to understand.

Just my two cents, for what they’re worth.

 

[Jean_Anthony]

Please do not discuss handing hold during the Our Father, everyone. There is a moratorium on that topic.

 

[JRKH]

I try to keep my hands folded when I pray at Mass, since this is what I was taught when young and in Catholic school years ago. Father has trained the altar servers to keep their hands folded when they are at prayer on the altar.

It seems as if not many Catholics in the pew do much of anything with their hands, even when the priest says “Let us pray” and demonstrates the folded hands position to everyone before opening his own hands to lead the prayer to God.

Catholic signs, symbols, and gestures are important to me. I love directing my prayer to God along with everyone else. I would like to know if Catholics here give this any thought.

Truthfully I don’t know what other people are doing. I am too busy praying and paying attention to Mass and to Our Lord.
I try to keep my hands folded most of the time.

Peace
James

 

[pastormike]

PLEASE, brothers and sisters, READ Matthew chapter 6. Pray for understanding.

 

[Another_Mary]

I’ve scanned through the posts in this topic but may have missed discussion of this–sorry if that’s the case.

I’m wondering what we are talking about when we say "hands folded’. All those years ago in Catholic school we were told that when we didn’t have anything to do in class, to sit up straight with our “hands folded” on the desk. (That is, if we weren’t told to rest with our heads on our folded arms on the desktop!). By “hands folded” Sister meant hands clasped together, fingers curved around the outside.

In those years we were taught that while praying our hands were to be together from palms to fingers. I’m sure you know what I mean. My mom and other adults would pray with hands clasped and fingers curved. I find myself doing that as an adult.

Sometimes I see adults praying with their hands together, not folded, as we were taught as children. So I am wondering in this topic if we are talking about hands folded with fingers curved or hands pressed against each other…or maybe I answered that already because if they are pressed together they are not folded…

Sorry. I am having a confused day!

This or this ?

 

[Geremia]

Catholic signs, symbols, and gestures are important to me. I love directing my prayer to God along with everyone else. I would like to know if Catholics here give this any thought.

Yes, I grew up in a Novus Ordo mass environment where clasping one’s hands is commoner than folding them. Now I attend Gregorian Rite (a.k.a, “traditional Latin” or “Tridentine”) masses where folding is commoner, and boy do proper gestures make a difference for how I pray!

 

[Joannm]

There is next to nothing in the GIRM or rubrics of the Missal as to the hand position of the assembly for prayer during the Mass. It is basically left up to the individual. I sometimes keep my arms crossed across my chest, especaillly when I am kneeling. I keep them clapsed sometimes and sometimes do the traditional fingertip to fingertip posture. Sometimes I put my hands on the pew in front of me.

 

[Evan]

I’ve always gone with this idea.

We are made by God with Body and Soul. So for proper prayer we should include both the physical and the spiritual in prayer.

My body must pray as my spirit prays. so…

I bow, I fold hands, I make the sign of the cross (typical one, on forehead, on lips), I kneel, I receive ashes, I fast, I stand, I close my eyes…

I try to use my body to assist my soul in prayer.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Hold your hands the way you find the most helpful to your prayer, and allow others the same privilege.

 

[blaskoman]

instead of the orans posture many assume, I like to raise both my arms as high as possible…ok kidding

does not all prayer raise up to Heaven?? Must prayer be accompanied by unusual arm gestures for prayer to reach its intended target (GOD)? I dont get it with all the extra arm gestures and hand holding during Mass.

I am also met with dismay when parishoners raise their right hands in the Sieg Heil salute.

Was the charismatic movement behind these gestures???

 

[mkingdomlvr]

Not a problem around here. There are tons of hand gestures constantly being used, I just don’t understand any of them. For instance, when anybody says “The Lord be with you” everybody responds by thrusting their hands at the person. At “We lift them up to the lord” everyone sticks their hands up in the air. It starts to look a bit like a big hokey-pokey going on. Then there is always the carrying of firewood. During the Our Father the people in the pews of course grab hands, but up in the sanctuary I always see the people carrying imaginary firewood. It is the funniest position I can imagine to take during a prayer, and seems so completely disconnected to what is actually happening. My favorite though is the ever presnt Nazi salute. Whenever anyone is baptized, confirmed or instituted in some position like that of EMHC all of the people in the pews will hold their hands up in some sort of imitation of a laying on of hands, long-distance style. However, instead of looking prayerful or some such it is a perfect reenactment of a Nazi rally and everyone is saluting Hitler. A bit creepy actually.

So, I would say that here locally there are bunches of hand gestures going on. Too bad the sign of the cross or the folded hands you mention are not among them.

I agree with you on that, and try to teach my children appropriate gestures and the like during worship. I think they mean a lot and encourage a proper attention to what is going on. I constantly remind them, my kids that is, when to hold their hands together in front of them in prayer, including the Our Father, and all the way to the Amen at the end, rather than just after the “And the power…” part. I teach them to make the sign of the cross at “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”, and to bow during the Nicene Creed. We are the only people in our Church which seem to do these things btw. Having converted about thirteen years ago from high-church Anglicanism I also teach them to bow their heads when the crucifix is carried by in the procession, though we are certainly alone in this. I believe these things all contribute to developing a mindset proper to worship and this is especially important in children.

Thanks for this post! I thought I was the only person who thought that “long distance” blessing thing looked creepy. The gestures really do look silly, and I don’t really understand why they are SO much better than the way we were taught as kids.

I still fold my hands just like I did when I was attending our morning school Masses as a kid. I still bow my head at the name of “Jesus”. I still bow during the Creed-even though I miss the genuflection we used to do in school.

Some of the stuff going on at Masses today would have the Good Sisters from my school holding people for detention and teaching them the proper posture and attentiveness at Mass.

 

[JulianN]

Hold your hands the way you find the most helpful to your prayer, and allow others the same privilege.

:clapping:

 

[brigid12]

I always taught my own children to keep their hands folded at Mass, but must admit my motive was two-fold – to keep their attention focused on God and to keep their hands OFF one another. (Suspect the schoolroom nuns had the same thing in mind . . . )

I never thought of that but it makes perfect sense!

 

[OhMalley]

It seems like those who prefer the “5 on 5” hand positioning dislike those who employ the orans or other positioning. None of this is defined by the Church for the laity during the Mass. Just relax and do what’s best for you.

 

[Sr_Sally]

This past Sunday the young fellow from our parish who is in seminary was home for a visit. He was assisting Father at Mass wearing cassock and surplice. The regular altar server of about the same stature was wearing an alb. The seminarian stood with hands folded as we did when I was a server. The altar server, a young lad, stood with his hands clenched together and hanging down by his belt buckle. I was actually surprised by the contrast. Cassock and surplice with hands properly folded does make an amazing difference. The other obvious difference was in the shoes. Tennies do look slovenly at least the multi colored ones do. I just hate feeling so unprogressive.

Our altar boys also were the cassock and surplice. They are asked to wear dark dress shoes, dress pants, a shirt with a collar and are taught to hold their hands together fingers pointing up when standing and to sit with hands on their knees. They do look good! And I know it helps them concentrate/focus because my son has mentioned how it keeps them from fidgeting and wiggling.

However, back in the pews I don’t know that we all have to fold our hands the same way in order to ‘prove’ that we are praying. I usually clasp my hands together and try very hard not to notice or tabulate what everyone around me is doing. We do have some folks who hold hands during the Our Father, but they just do it as a family group. No one has ever tried to grab my hand or stretched out across aisles to hold hands.

Let us all resolve to keep our face in our hands after communion as the good Sister Mary taught us and not worry so much about other people’s prayer posture.

 

[OhMalley]

Our altar boys also were the cassock and surplice. They are asked to wear dark dress shoes, dress pants, **a shirt with a collar **and are taught to hold their hands together fingers pointing up when standing and to sit with hands on their knees. They do look good! And I know it helps them concentrate/focus because my son has mentioned how it keeps them from fidgeting and wiggling.

However, back in the pews I don’t know that we all have to fold our hands the same way in order to ‘prove’ that we are praying. I usually clasp my hands together and try very hard not to notice or tabulate what everyone around me is doing. We do have some folks who hold hands during the Our Father, but they just do it as a family group. No one has ever tried to grab my hand or stretched out across aisles to hold hands.

Let us all resolve to keep our face in our hands after communion as the good Sister Mary taught us and not worry so much about other people’s prayer posture.

Why collared shirts? Their shirt collars should not be showing, even if that requires folding their collars “under” their shirts. Why dress pants? I can see dark pants but if the cassock fits correctly you shouldn’t rarely be able to see their pants unless they are walking up steps, etc. I wear crisp black jeans, a white t-shirt and solid black New Balance sneakers along with a cassock and surplice when I serve Mass.

 

[GodIsGracious]

PLEASE, brothers and sisters, READ Matthew chapter 6. Pray for understanding.

Uhm. I have read Matthew 6. I suspect you’re not Catholic? Well, with all due respect, our Mass has a form and there are many of us who wish to keep it that way. It’s bad enough there’s already a lot of protestant influence, we don’t need anymore.

 

[Sr_Sally]

Why collared shirts? Their shirt collars should not be showing, even if that requires folding their collars “under” their shirts. Why dress pants? I can see dark pants but if the cassock fits correctly you shouldn’t rarely be able to see their pants unless they are walking up steps, etc. I wear crisp black jeans, a white t-shirt and solid black New Balance sneakers along with a cassock and surplice when I serve Mass.

And you are an older teen or a young adult. The boys I am talking about are late elementary school through high school. Dress shoes, pants and a collared shirt translates to them as dress nicely, be neat and clean. If the rules were black sneakers, clean jeans and t-shirt, who knows what they would show-up in. Yes, even with their mother watching them! As it is, I have seen blue jeans and sneakers on very rare occasions, although for the vast majority of the boys are well trained and very reverant in their attitude. I think a large part of the is the seriousness that the priests have about training them and the strict rules about their duties.

 

[Geremia]

You ever read the “Nine Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic?”