Holding hands at the Lord's Prayer

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I don’t mind the holding hands during the Lords’ prayer but, I do agree it is sometimes bothersom to be moving across the aisle and reaching for another hand.

What I do now is to raise my free hand up to the Lord as an act of worship and then I don’t have to be concerned about moving about and taking my mind off of what is happening around me
 
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jp2fan:
Talk about the Mass becoming Protestant, I would say that saying that the communal ‘horizontal’ aspect of Mass is unimportant is quite a Protestant point of view. .

jp2fan
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And where exactly do I say it is unimportant? Please–no straw man arguments. The point is the communal horizontal shared meal aspect of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is secondary to the vertical aspect, despite what many post Vatican II priest/budding geometrists might say.
 
CD4 said:
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**I agree…It seems to me that we often forget the importace of our faith being both horizontal as well as vertical. Each is essential to the other, and we need them both to fully experience our faith. **
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Equating the two aspects is an error, no doubt fostered by the hand holding priest mimicking behaviour you defend
 
I have heard others troubled by hand holding during the Lord’s Prayer. I have read the arguments against the practice and clearly it is a minor liturgical abuse as compared to the current revision of the rubrics. I don’t usually initiate hand holding at mass myself anymore except with my young daughter who delights in it.

I offer a couple insights. 1) The words of the prayer itself attest to its communal nature: ‘Our Father… Give us this day our daily bread… Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us… Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’. Throughout the prayer the reference to the supplicant is in the communal form (our, us, we). I believe this is the horizontal element described in other posts. If it is true (and I believe it is) that when we sin as individuals, the entire Catholic Christian community is lessened. It suffers from individual sin as the sinner does. Does it not also follow that when we pray at mass, the public prayer of the Church, we do so as a community, united physically as well as spiritually to the vertical element? 2) We are the body of Christ on earth. He knows thoughts and hearts, Most of us don’t. When hands are extended or grasped, we cannot know the hearts of that person. Is it not more affirming to wish the person well, regardless of their intentions or needs at that moment, than becoming detached and distracted ourselves? Offer what may be only a gesture of showmanship to Christ in prayer as a member of His body here on earth.
 
Hey

I am a convert from about 7+ years ago. In the Methodist church I belonged to, we didn’t hold hands for the our father. Since going through the RCIA process, I found a large group of people who would reach out to me and my family. These people are the ones I usually sit with at mass and hold hands for the our father. I find there are a lot of people who don’t even like to give the sign of peace or are still bitter about the Vatican II changes. If we can’t express our love for our fellow parishioner, then who can we? If we care more about the coffee and donuts after the mass than the fellow parishioner sitting next to us, where are our priorities. There seem to be a large group of parishioners at every church who are receiving communion with their car keys in their hand so they can make the fast getaway after communion.
Why aren’t these people getting attacked from other groups?
Is that in the rubics to stay until the celebrant leaves the mass?
I don’t think holding hands at the our father should be forced on anyone.
Just my $.02
Thanks
 
I am trying to remain charitable, but again, how many times does it have to be said that mass is not worship of the community? It is a community, but again, there can be all the fellowship that is needed AFTER MASS. Mass itself is not social hour, it is again about worship of God, and none of the slogans such as the cross being horzonal and vertical or any other slogan or cliche’ will change that fact. I care about fellow parishoners, but we are in communion with each other since we are Catholics allready, we take communion together there is no more signs needed for unity, since we are at mass to worship God.

I know all the posters on this thread mean well, but if a mass has become so horizonalised, so touchy feely, then externally it becoems more and more Protestant, even non Liturgical in nature, and that is as I said a few times allready one of the biggest reasons why so many no longer believe in the real presence.
 
David Ancell:
Oh, by the way, the way I get out of holding someone’s hand is to always have my missal at Mass. I keep it in my hands so that people know there is no way they are grabbing my hand.

David
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That’s the old Bob Dole trick so people don’t accidentally pull off his prosthetic arm. It certainly works for him.
 
jnb-
You keep saying that all this “horizontalizing” has led to a lesser belief in the real presence, but you have offered NO argument or proof that one leads to the other. Also, and please take note, noone here is positing that we are at Mass to worship each other. Please stop saying that. But what I am saying is that you CANNOT have vertical without the horizontal. If you want to have a mature, sincere faith, they have to go hand in hand!

I’m gonna quote the Catechism on this topic:

2768 (as taken from St John Chrysostom): According to the apostolic tradition, the Lord’s prayer is essentially rooted in liturgical prayer: “The Lord teaches us to make prayer in common for all our brethren. For he did not say ‘my Father’ who art in heaven, but ‘our’ Father, offering petitions for the common Body.’”

2770: In the Eucharistic liturgy the Lord’s Prayer appears as the prayer of the whole Church and there reveals its full meaning and efficacy…

2791: … in spite of the divisions among Christians, this prayer to “our” Father remains our common patrimony and an urgent summons for all the baptized. In communion by faith in Christ and by Baptism, they ought to join in Jesus’ prayer for the unity of his disciples.
(Seems to me that this prayer does afford a sense of communion)

2792: Finally,** if we pray the Our Father sincerely, we leave individualism behind, because the love that we receive frees us from it.** The “our” at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, like the "us of the last four petitions, excludes no one. If we are to say it truthfully, our divisions and oppositions have to be overcome.

2793: The baptized cannot pray to “our” Father without bringing before him al those to whom he gave his beloved Son. God’s love has no bounds, neither should our prayer. Praying “our” Father opens to us the dimensions of his love revealed in Christ: praying with and for all who do not yet know him, so that Christ may “gather into one the children of God.” God’s care for all men and for the whole of creation has inspired all the great practitioners of prayer; it should extend our prayer to the full breadth of love whenever we dare to say “our” Father.

jp2fan
 
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Fullsizesedan:
I hope you’re being sarcastic, but really people should have more respect for longstanding religious traditions in some churches.

Yes they should. I believe that’s what this thread is all about, an introduction of a practice that is not the tradition of the church. So, respect it!
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Maggie:
I might be wrong on this, but our priest indicated that there are liturgical reasons behind the standing/kneeling/sitting pieces of Mass, so if you are asked to stand, you may not wish to kneel, as he seemed to indicate that it is more appropriate as a form of worship at some points in the Mass to be standing.
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I agree with you. The Mass should be unifying, not divisive. There is not enough teaching coming from the ambo. No one should be forced to hold hands with another person. I find that lowering my eyes and clasping my hands in a prayerful stance during the Lord’s Prayer makes my point. I am not sticking out like a sore thumb, and I am not being subjected to an annoying distraction. People who defy the GIRM and kneel when they are not supposed to (another example is during the Agnus Dei) are just drawing attention to themselves and away from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
 
Holding hands during the Lord’s Prayer detracts from the true sign of community, Holy Communion! If, for example, the Lord’s prayer was said AFTER Communion (which it isn’t), holding hands would make sense. We are not one body, one community, one Church, until we partake in Holy Eucharist. Hence, the importance of the recipient being free from mortal sin and in communion with Church teaching (i.e. John Kerry, etc…)
 
JNB,
The mass, by it’s nature is, “communitarian”, according to the GIRM. Now you can jump up and down and repeat yourself as much as you want, but I do not agree that people holding hands during a prayer at mass is dampening down any reverence for the Eucharist. In fact, I would contend that even when holding a stranger’s hand, I am still less “horizontally” focused than some people who are looking around judging everyone else’s posture during mass. C’mon, you cannot honestly tell me that you have not missed out on a few words of the Lord’s Prayer mentally because you were busy being upset because someone invaded your space. I can tell you that my mind certainly wanders occasionally during mass but not over whether I am going to have to touch the person next to me. I hardly think holding someone’s hand is “touchy, feely” but if it is, so what? God made us social beings, we need each other. In fact, I really suspect the having to touch someone else is the whole thing. The rubrics do not state you can hold hands and they don’t say you can’t hold hands. In fact, the only thing they say is that the faithful should adopt a common posture - decidedly vague (maybe on purpose). This may mean just all standing. Or we could be really strict and say everyone must stand erect, shoulders back, both feet on floor (definitely not one foot resting on the kneeler) with hands clasped together at the breast bone all fingers pointing to the ceiling. This sounds ridiculous to everyone (I hope) and to a lot of us so does saying the vague language of the GIRM bans any holding out or holding of hands. I believe the GIRM is vague for a reason, because when it was put together, the authors did not feel that holding hands was necessarily detrimental to the mass. So they let it alone. Why can’t you? Now I have seen some excellent posts here with detailed reasoning (check out jp2fan’s last post) but you are not giving any reasoning, just your individual opinion of what the GIRM means which is no more valid than my opinion of what the GIRM means.

And Opus Dei, nothing so simple as holding someone’s hand in any way detracts for me the magnificence of the Eucharist. Again no reason other than your own opinion which is not necessarily more valid than mine. How are we not One Church until we partake of the Eucharist? I am part of the One Church, the One Body, sitting right here at my desk, am I not? At least, that is what I thought I received through baptism.
 
One last thought I have on this topic is that hand-holding is EXclusive. If, for me, hand-holding is an issue, and I don’t want to do it, essentially, I would be excluding the person on my other side who does want to do it. (Talk about a run-on sentence!)

We should be able to walk into any Catholic church in the world (well, at least the USA) and have unity as to the Order of the Mass.
 
To awnser a few questions, at the parish I attend, no one holds hands during the lords prayer, in fact, many are now starting to give a bow rather than shake hands during the sign of peace.

JP2fan, the evidence I give for the horizontalisation of the mass causing problems is the fact , and it is a sad fact that fewer and fewer Catholics, even ones who go to mass, believe in t he real presence, if this wasnt a problem, the diocese I used to live in a couple of years ago would not have had to have printed up flyers to explain what the Eucharist is. If the mass is so hosizontalised where the line between priest and laity is blurred, then the externals of the mass are blurred, and it, at least externally, becomes more and more non liturgical. You can quote the CCC all you want JP2fan, but it says nothing about posture, being unified at mass does not mean we have to hold hands.

Beverly, all I have seen from JP2fan is a bunch of mental gymnastics, trying to justify somthing that is not part of the rubrics of mass. Even Mr. Keating himself in a previous post on the thread said hand holding during the lords prayer is an abuse, albiet a minor abuse. Again, as more info is put out, I expect the hand holding during the lords prayer to diminish, as it has in some parishes.
 
The priest at our parish is slowly winning over everyone to NOT holding hands during the prayer. I remember the first time during mass when he asked us not to hold hands as a sign that we are relying on God alone and not solely on each other. The gasp that came from the crowd would have a lead a blind man to believe that we were watching a horror movie!

The next thing he did was to stop holding the hands of the altar servers during the prayer. Next he asked the eucharistic ministers to hold their hands up in prayer, rather than holding hands.

For the past 6 months he has lead a very patient effort to stop the practice at our church. I for one am grateful, though there are those in our congregation that still feel the need to hold hands.

Now if he can only figure out a why to stop people from running laps around the sanctuary during peace!
 
I think people who do not wish to hold hands during the Lord’s Prayer should focus on the prayer right away instead of being shocked by how people stretch and go out of their way to hold one anothers hands. It reminds me of people complaining of babys crying instead of focusing on the mass. I dunno, just an observation.
 
jnb-
you talk about mental gymnastics, but I must say that I understood pretty much nothing of your last post. Perhaps you could clarify. However, the point of the Catechism quotes was to point out to you that the “OUR” Father is a communal prayer. Yes, it is vertical, but it is also necessarily horizontal. And one note, with all due respect, Keating is not exactly infallibile, let’s remember.

beverly- “How are we not One Church until we partake of the Eucharist? I am part of the One Church, the One Body, sitting right here at my desk, am I not? At least, that is what I thought I received through baptism.”

Yes, the cathechism agrees with you- 2790: In praying “our” Father, each of the baptized is praying this in communion: ‘The company of those who believed were of one heart and soul.’

jplumey-
“he asked us not to hold hands as a sign that we are relying on God alone and not solely on each other.”

That’s interesting, but… “Now the body is not a single part, but many. If a foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,’ it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if an ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body,’ it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. If they were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. **The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I do not need you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I do not need you.’”- **1 Cor

Just a thought about relying on God without relying on each other.

jp2fan
 
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Beverly:
And Opus Dei, nothing so simple as holding someone’s hand in any way detracts for me the magnificence of the Eucharist. Again no reason other than your own opinion which is not necessarily more valid than mine. How are we not One Church until we partake of the Eucharist? I am part of the One Church, the One Body, sitting right here at my desk, am I not? At least, that is what I thought I received through baptism.
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Indeed you are, although sin separates you from the Body. Thus the parts of the Liturgy are carefully designed to be linear. Beginning with the Penitential Rite and reaching its climactic point with the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist, aka Holy COMMUNION. There is a great deal of symbolism in the Novus Ordo Mass and unfortunately some of these ‘practices’, as I stated earlier, detract from that symobilsm. As to it not being specifically restricted in the GIRM; nowhere in the Missal does it tell me not to where my underwear on my head and stand on my hands during the Liturgy; however, I think we can all agree that would detract from the celebration.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon7.gif
 
I’m not a fan of the holding hands thing. With family and friends its fine, but with someone you dont know and probably wont see again until next Sunday, it seems like a sort of fake thing to do. Plus, when I’m praying, its to God, and I do not want to be distracted in any way.
 
Oh I just can’t resist. This is so much fun!

At the very bottom of this issue, whether one likes it or not, is the issue of Charity, or, if you will, Love.

Christ repeatedly chastized the Pharisees for seeing the law, but failing to se the why of the law ( and many, if not most of those discussions started with the fact that Christ was not following the law). And before we go off the deep end on that, I am speaking of law, the specific, as opposed to Law, the general (or, the Torah).

What I see here is a good bit of Pharisee. The GIRM does not make any specific reference to exactly what body posture (holding hands, Orans [arms somewhat out to the side, palms up or out], hands at side, hands folded together, fingers overlapped, hands held together, fingers pointed upward) is apprpriate at the Our Father. And specifically, they chose not to address the issue with the latest GIRM, or any subsequent documents.

Calling it an abuse can only be founded in the philosophy of law that “what is not (specifically) allowed is prohibitied”, which is referred to as the Germanic philosophy of law. The Mediterranian philosophy is the reverse: “what is not specifically prohibited is allowed”. And the last time I looked, the Vatican was not in Berlin…

Consonant with that is the admonition that one is not to draw attention to oneself, as we are to worship in unity (there goes OpusDei’s comments about underwear on the head or standing on hands; cute comments but totally irrelevant).

JNB, I challenge you to show any studies which show that the loss of understanding of the Eucharist is rooted in what goes on during the Mass. Granted that lazy rubrics practice is interrelated with lazy attitudes, I would suggest that the direct cause of it is catechesis, and specifically some of the “bubblegum” stuff that has been pawned off on a generation or more since the '70s.

Detroit Sue: you get it. How do you feel when you go to shake someone’s hand (in any setting), and they refuse to shake? You know immediatley the rejection.

Opus Dei: we are not a community until Communion? Care to back that statement up with anything? It simply defies logic and the plain meaning of words. Is our communal action complete until the Eucharist? No. But not a community until then??

In one of the prior comments, it was said that it was becasue of the abuses, remarked on by JP II, that a document was issued (actually, at least two, the GIRM, and the subsequent one, which name escapes me). Exactly. And neither document remarked on holding hands, which, as I commented earlier, puts this whole issue somewhere towards the end of the spectrum marked “non issues”.

And Mr. Keating calls it an abuse. That’s nice. And on a scale of 1 to 100, many are putting it up in the 80’s and 90’s (holding hands and wiping your nose on their hand? abomination?). There is a masssive inablility of many conservatives to know what is abusive, and what they just don’t like.

I’ve gone to Mass where they don’t hold hands, and where they do. Neither one distracts me, or makes me upset; neither one interferes with my worship of God. My parish is one in which most people hold hands. We also have 24 hour Adoration, a building group of Pro life; we are one of the biggest churches in our area in terms of food pantry for the poor. We are following the GIRM fairly well, and the last directive not so well, and our pastor is in his 70’s and by no means a liberal. Neither is he a conservative. He is just true to the Magisterium. He does nothing during the Mass as an ad hoc. And if he is not anal about following the directives, well, at this point in his life I’m willing to give him some breathing room, as he is as reverential as any priest I’ve personally come in contact with who follows the rubrics right down to the last jot and tittle.

I used to go to a daily Mass, pre Vatican II, that was a 12 minute Mass. And he followed the rubrics exactly. Does anyone get the point?

To those of you who refuse to hold hands, and therby let the person next to you know that you won’t take their hand when they reach out, How will Christ judge you on that day: " Come in, you folowed the rubrics exactly, and showed that person who wasn’t where they could get off"; or will it be, “When you were at Mass, and that person next to you reached out to hold hands during the prayer I taught you, where was your Charity? Did I come to teach you rubrics, or Love?”
 
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