Has your pastor tried to stop hand-holding during the Our Father? If so, what happened?

[ncjohn]

I had just the opposite experience. Our former parish got a new pastor who tried to implement handholding.

We specifically told our kids that they should not do so. We had teachers and older students telling our kids that they now had to hold hands during the ‘Our Father’, inspite our our clear instructions (to the kids AND the teachers) that they should not.

We have since moved to another parish that has more respect for the parents primary role in the religious education of their children.

Both your experience and Dawn’s are deplorable. A parent should never be undermined like that. We had a similar situation in our parish over another matter, going in the other direction, which I prefer not to discuss. I sent a letter to the bishop on it, but don’t know if anything was ever done or not.

 

[anniemart]

I’ve been told my Prostestant friends that the Catholic church has them to thank for the “holding of hands” as that is what belies true brotherhood amongst us all.

I responded that while holding hands is not a custom that the church teaches, it is not what belies brotherhood for us. The mass, the grandest prayer offered via a community of saints, that we all have a duty to aspire to, is what belies true brotherhood to us.

What I see happen sometimes in weak catechesis is that people understand brotherhood in “action” to be the moment during the mass when everyone holds hands. But this is not so, true brotherhood for us begins at the very moment that mass commences—when we are there together to worship our Lord and King.

Needless to say, my friends have yet to see the light and as Fr. Corapi is fond of saying, Prostestants are all Catholic…they just don’t know it yet.

 

[Lepanto]

I’ve been told my Prostestant friends that the Catholic church has them to thank for the “holding of hands” as that is what belies true brotherhood amongst us all.

Yes, the hand-holding practice does come from the Protestants. It started with the peace and civil rights marches of the 60s and 70s, then it jumped to Protestant services, then it infiltrated the Mass through the back door. It is not an organic development of the Mass from within.

I have nothing against holding hands – just not during Mass.