Holding hands during mass for Our Father

[barb_finnegan]

That’s fine, no one is going to force you to hold hands, good grief. May I ask if you stay and visit at all after Mass or are you one of the one’s who bolt for the door as soon as you have your blessing? Or there are the people that leave right after Communion and don’t even wait for the blessing. I don’t like that. There seems to be a group of people that think if they put in the 45 mins. get Communion, then they are done and they don’t have to do another Catholic thing for the rest of the week ( my in-laws ) But I guess that is off topic. Maybe we should discuss that sometime. Does it do you any good to come to Church, but not be a part of the Church?

happymommy-thanks for your post. To answer your question-yes, I do stay and visit after the Latin Mass. In fact, that’s the only time I get to see most of the people I know, anyway. And I stay for the Last Blessing and the Last Gospel, too.

And I am a part of the Church-I just don’t like the handholding part if I go to the NO Mass.

 

[Annemariels]

Where-oh-where did this hand-holding tradition start anyways??

I am very quirky about being touched by people I don’t know. Even when the usher gently touches me on the back to guide me into the other Communion line, I am thrown all out of whack. My focus shifts from receiving the Eucharist to being touched and thoughts like, “Couldn’t she have just whispered to me to fill in the gap in the other line?” I get all huffy and am not over it by the time I am standing before the Eucharist. It’s an awful quirk to have, I know, but it is what it is. And I feel obligated to hold hands during the Our Father, even though I dread it. I smile like it’s ok, but it isn’t ok at all. I think about that hand in mine the entire time, and beyond. It’s so distracting for people like me.

This hand-holding business gives hand-holder kinda people the “right” to control the whole church with their touchy-feely tendencies. It takes my right to remain touch-free away because most people like me don’t want to rock-the-boat during the Our Father. We go with the flow because we don’t want to embarrass ourselves or the one whose hand has been extended to us, so we smile and suffer.

 

[PJM]

yep, adlibbing is frowned upon.
thats why we have our manuals,
they are not suggestions of rites.
not doing a rite right invalidates it.

Reply:

God bless you Father for your humble obedience

Please feel free to share the truth that “Obedience” in more than a personal option. Again, God bless you!

PJM m.c.

 

[Leonius]

Reply

I do, and I don’t.

I do when attending Mass with my wife, I don’t when I attend daily Mass.

I am aware that it is not an approved practice, but when compared to Communion in the hand, ordinary ministers of the Eucharist, removal of altar rails ect., ect., ect, I asked myself WWJD?

My dear friends there are far, FAR, **FAR/**COLOR] greater abuses to contend with. Amen?

God bless, PJM m.c.

So little abuses are ok?

 

[Leonius]

Individual actions cannot of themselves alter the liturgy.

How do you manage to hold hands with yourself? It is not an individual action, that is one of the reasons why it is to be repudiated. It is done by the laity if not as a whole at least in large groups and is an unauthorised alteration to the liturgy, one which we as laity have no right to do.

Let me ask you a theoretical question, there are no specific condemnations of me doing cartwheels during the Our Father, could that also be ok? What if I got the rest of the laity to form a human pyramid during the Our Father, would that be ok?

You just don’t get to have it both ways. And the Church, in failing in all these decades to speak negatively to the topic, has made its position clear. Individuals, “even if he be a priest”, do not get to be “more Catholic than the Pope” by imposing their own preferences on the liturgy.

The Pope doesn’t hold hands at the Our Father nor does it happen at papal masses so who is trying to be more than the Pope if not the holding hands brigade?

If the priest asks you to stop doing it you should stop doing it, your personal preference does not outweigh your duty to obey the priest as the representative of God in the parish, or would you destroy the unity of the parish and cause scandal just to get your own way?

 

[PJM]

Oh boy here is my “Holding Hands/Sign of Peace” Story.

When I met my wife, the 1st thing we did was attend mass together at Assumption Grotto in Detroit (Where I am proudly a member now).

Replyear friend in Christ,

Did you know Father Hordon? (May he rest in peace).

I’m one of “his” Marian Catecheist.

Where can I get more information on the Knights of St. Michael?
We sure need him these day’s

God bless, PJM mc

 

[Leonius]

Where-oh-where did this hand-holding tradition start anyways??

Well its not tradition and it started at AA meetings and then infiltrated into the church via charismatics I am told.

 

[PJM]

And yet not a single one of those sources addresses the most hotly complained about item there is!

Especially Redemptionis Sacramentum, written recently and specifically to deal with even the minutest of abuses, has not a single word about the practice.

And then ignore the sentence right before the one in SC that you wrongly interpret to regulate a personal spontaneous gesture.

Individual priests have no authority to regulate liturgy. That means they don’t get to forbid things. If they think there is an issue they have the ability to go to the body with jurisdiction–the USCCB–and ask THEM to do something but they do not have that authority on their own.

I’ll not belabor things any further. Nothing you or I say is going to change things since the Church ultimately has the authority individuals aren’t going to either stop it or be able to sustain it.

Peace to you,

REPLY:

My dear friend in Christ,

Are we to understand from your OP that so long as the priest is in obedience to his Ordinary, that he has no obligation to know what Rome is teaching, preaching and desires to be practized? And futher, if he is aware if an abuse or “error,” his only course of corrective action is to go over the head of his bishop to the USCCB?

Where is the evidence of this position?

God bless, PJM m.c.

 

[Annemariels]

So it looks like the hand-holders win. bummer.

I just posted a question in apologetics - can you guys meet me there? It’s the ? about if I am renouncing my faith if I don’t always make the sign of the cross when I pray.

See you there?!

 

[Archangelum]

I just don’t understand the concept of shaking and holding hands either. Giving friendship on command to strangers without any theological basis?

 

[TLM08]

Is there an ‘official’ ruling on holding hands with the people next to you during the Our Father at mass?

All of this “holding hands” garbage got started back around the late 80s - early 90s in our parish strictly for show. Same can be said for those few that started showing up in the pews standing there in the “orans” posture wearing their flip flops and shorts during the Our Father looking like a bunch of potted plants. Unfortunately, this stupidity caught on. Now good catholics who are sincere and with good intention are doing this because they think it’s required!

Again, I simply refuse to engage in it.

 

[ljprevo]

All of this “holding hands” garbage got started back around the late 80s - early 90s in our parish strictly for show. Same can be said for those few that started showing up in the pews standing there in the “orans” posture wearing their flip flops and shorts during the Our Father looking like a bunch of potted plants. Unfortunately, this stupidity caught on. Now good catholics who are sincere and with good intention are doing this because they think it’s required!

Again, I simply refuse to engage in it.

I used to be a potted plant.

3 Years ago I met my wife and the wonderful parish I not belong to, after some deep soul searching and understanding, I quit the practice and will never go back.

I asked myself, why am “I” doing this? i remember that “warm fuzzy feel” to be in unity with others. Ohhh I am able to hold their hand, ohhh.

Once I realized that feeling was for my benefit and not God’s I abandoned it.

 

[Lux_et_Tenebrae]

All of this “holding hands” garbage got started back around the late 80s - early 90s in our parish strictly for show. Same can be said for those few that started showing up in the pews standing there in the “orans” posture wearing their flip flops and shorts during the Our Father looking like a bunch of potted plants. Unfortunately, this stupidity caught on. Now good catholics who are sincere and with good intention are doing this because they think it’s required!

Again, I simply refuse to engage in it.

Hi ,

That is very judgemental of you. If the Vatican & Bishops conference opt to remain neutral when asked about this action, why are you so disrespectful of your community?

Our daily communicants engage in this posture, and I assure you , they are not wearing short shorts or have the appearance of “potted plants”.

It is not “cool” to be disrespectful. Refuse, if you wish, but please be Christian about it.

Lux

 

[Lux_et_Tenebrae]

I just don’t understand the concept of shaking and holding hands either. Giving friendship on command to strangers without any theological basis?

Hi,

It is about community worship. Your fellow parishioners are not “strangers”.

Remember the parable about the Good Samaritan?

Lux

 

[BayernAnhaenger]

Hi ,

That is very judgemental of you. If the Vatican & Bishops conference opt to remain neutral when asked about this action, why are you so disrespectful of your community?

Our daily communicants engage in this posture, and I assure you , they are not wearing short shorts or have the appearance of “potted plants”.

It is not “cool” to be disrespectful. Refuse, if you wish, but please be Christian about it.

Lux

Probably because it’s an aberration in the Mass? And the faithful have no right to be copying the priest’s posture? Or maybe the orans posture is reserved for the priest, due to its historical significance?

 

[Lux_et_Tenebrae]

Probably because it’s an aberration in the Mass? And the faithful have no right to be copying the priest’s posture? Or maybe the orans posture is reserved for the priest, due to its historical significance?

Hi,

This is not how the USCCB views this situation.

When asked, the USCCB replied-

Orans
Many Catholics are in the habit of holding their hands in the “Orans” posture during the Lord’s prayer along with the celebrant. Some do this on their own as a private devotional posture while some congregations make it a general practice for their communities.

Is this practice permissible under the current rubrics, either as a private practice not something adopted by a particular parish as a communal gesture?

No position is prescribed in the present Sacramentary for an assembly gesture during the Lord’s Prayer.
Email us at bcl@usccb.org
Secretariat for Divine Worship | 3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington DC 20017-1194 | (202) 541-3060 © USCCB. All rights reserved.

Lux

 

[Archangelum]

It is about community worship. Your fellow parishioners are not “strangers”.

Oh yes they are. Parish life isn’t what it used to be anymore here in Europe. It’s all gone downhill faster than a cow on a skateboard. I have NO clue who all of these people are and I can’t get to know them since they rush out of church right after the blessing. I also never see them during rosary or anywhere else. Catholics have become strangers to one another. And besides, what is this “community worship”? That sounds like nihilistic newspeak to me. Community worship sounds like a H. Mass, which is where the community comes to worship. All the latest gimmicks and additions are duds.

Remember the parable about the Good Samaritan?

What does it say about shaking hands with strange people who’ve just picked or blown their nose? I also am having difficulty finding the term “community worship” in this parable.

 

[BayernAnhaenger]

Hi,

This is not how the USCCB views this situation.

When asked, the USCCB replied-

Lux

No position is prescribed in the present Sacramentary for an assembly gesture during the Lord’s Prayer.

So, then I can proceed to touch my toes during the Lord’s Prayer? Or maybe put my hands on my head. Maybe hold them out at my sides, and make a T. Or maybe I can touch my finger to my nose, and then do the same with the other hand.

No position may be prescribed for the Lord’s Prayer, but, and here’s the important part, what have we, as Catholics, traditionally done in the last 2000 years of Mass during the Lord’s Prayer?

Answer: Not this.

 

[Lux_et_Tenebrae]

Perhaps you need a refresher on this. Does the question
“Who was neighbor to the man who had fallen victim to the thieves” help?

Lux

 

[BayernAnhaenger]

Oh yes they are. Parish life isn’t what it used to be anymore here in Europe. It’s all gone downhill faster than a cow on a skateboard. I have NO clue who all of these people are and I can’t get to know them since they rush out of church right after the blessing. I also never see them during rosary or anywhere else. Catholics have become strangers to one another. And besides, what is this “community worship”? That sounds like nihilistic newspeak to me. Community worship sounds like a H. Mass, which is where the community comes to worship. All the latest gimmicks and additions are duds.

What does it say about shaking hands with strange people who’ve just picked or blown their nose? I also am having difficulty finding the term “community worship” in this parable.

Community worship is that catch-all phrase used by liturgical innovators to go and introduce changes and silly garbage into the liturgy.