Holding hands during the Our Father

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roadsend said:
Holding hands is not a posture.
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If you say so. Looks like one to me. Anyway, I’m not aware of anything in canon law that allows a bishop absolutely to proscribe X, where “X” is whatever category of conduct holding hands falls into.
 
MarkThompson said:
Out of curiosity, do you see hand-holding as an attempt to glorify ourselves? That’s a spin I haven’t yet heard put on it.
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Obviously you were not addressing me, but if you don’t mind I’m going to add my own thought. I don’t believe its a gesture glorifying ourselves, but it certainly relates to the anthropocentric ordering of what the OF has turned itself into. From time to time I do attend an OF Mass out of necessity, and the experience is a constant assault on the senses. During most of the Mass one is aware of chatter that is almost ceaseless, regardless of what is occurring in the Sanctuary. Before the opening announcements and the opening greet your neighbor there is an absolute roar in the Churches in my area. I blive in the AD of Florida. It seems that the majority are afraid of being alone with God. That’s how I’ve come to view the hand holding, as an almost rabid fear of being alone with God.

I have no idea if I’ve explained myself properly.
 
maurin said:
Obviously you were not addressing me, but if you don’t mind I’m going to add my own thought. I don’t believe its a gesture glorifying ourselves, but it certainly relates to the anthropocentric ordering of what the OF has turned itself into. From time to time I do attend an OF Mass out of necessity, and the experience is a constant assault on the senses. During most of the Mass one is aware of chatter that is almost ceaseless, regardless of what is occurring in the Sanctuary. Before the opening announcements and the opening greet your neighbor there is an absolute roar in the Churches in my area. I blive in the AD of Florida. It seems that the majority are afraid of being alone with God. That’s how I’ve come to view the hand holding, as an almost rabid fear of being alone with God.

I have no idea if I’ve explained myself properly.
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You explained it fine. I don’t think I agree though; I think for a lot of people there’s a joy and spirit in joining hands or linking arms and doing something together. Families or a husband and wife hold hands, for instance, and it’s not out of fear. Mind you, I personally strongly dislike handholding at Mass. But the Mass, after all, is not an individual prayer. It is a corporate act of worship. Where you are, you presumably have a lot of Latin American … zest at the Mass, and because everyone is different I can assure you that just as you find chattering, handholding people almost incomprehensible, they too would find someone incomprehensible who said, “Look, all I want to do is go to Mass in silence, not interact with anybody, and pray along by myself from my missal as the priest says the service silently – is that so much to ask? And no music, please, it’s distracting.” That’s a point of view I’ve seen more than one person express on this board, and, sure, it’s one perfectly legitimate way to worship.
 
MarkThompson said:
Out of curiosity, do you see hand-holding as an attempt to glorify ourselves? That’s a spin I haven’t yet heard put on it.
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I am sure many parishioners do not see the simple, yet pronounced action as glorification. Yet, if added to other particular abuses, it is a modification of the Mass to make it more in our own image than God. Moreover, the position of the laity during the Our Father certainly varies from parish to parish. For example, I attended an OF of the Mass at a parish that is part of a Dominican Priory that entailed the laity not engaging in the hand positions of the Priest nor holding hands at all during the Our Father.
 
PA650 said:
…For example, I attended an OF of the Mass at a parish that is part of a Dominican Priory that entailed the laity not engaging in the hand positions of the Priest nor holding hands at all during the Our Father.
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Sounds like Holy Rosary in Portland, the only church within a day’s round trip, where I can attend a Novus Ordo Liturgy and feel that I have actually been to a Catholic Mass.
 
MarkThompson said:
You explained it fine. I don’t think I agree though; I think for a lot of people there’s a joy and spirit in joining hands or linking arms and doing something together. Families or a husband and wife hold hands, for instance, and it’s not out of fear. Mind you, I personally strongly dislike handholding at Mass. But the Mass, after all, is not an individual prayer. It is a corporate act of worship. Where you are, you presumably have a lot of Latin American … zest at the Mass, and because everyone is different I can assure you that just as you find chattering, handholding people almost incomprehensible, they too would find someone incomprehensible who said, “Look, all I want to do is go to Mass in silence, not interact with anybody, and pray along by myself from my missal as the priest says the service silently – is that so much to ask? And no music, please, it’s distracting.” That’s a point of view I’ve seen more than one person express on this board, and, sure, it’s one perfectly legitimate way to worship.
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There are very few parishes down here where the Latin and Anglo congregations mix freely. You’d be surprised. When I lived I Tx it was the same.

One may take part in a corporate act of worship which is theocentric and sober, instead anthropocentric and raucous. Which Saints taught that one met God in the midst of shuffle and noise?
 
maurin said:
There are very few parishes down here where the Latin and Anglo congregations mix freely. You’d be surprised. When I lived I Tx it was the same.

One may take part in a corporate act of worship which is theocentric and sober, instead anthropocentric and raucous. Which Saints taught that one met God in the midst of shuffle and noise?
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David? Maximilian Kolbe?

That aside, there’s definitely a difference between, you know, secular chatter and a lively people. But different cultures will naturally have different ways of looking at propriety and worship, and it can be easy as Americans, a lot of whose religious culture is influenced by a couple of centuries of Calvinistic and Puritan Protestantism, to have rather a more straightlaced view of things than a lot of cultures do.
 
MarkThompson said:
David? Maximilian Kolbe?

That aside, there’s definitely a difference between, you know, secular chatter and a lively people. But different cultures will naturally have different ways of looking at propriety and worship, and it can be easy as Americans, a lot of whose religious culture is influenced by a couple of centuries of Calvinistic and Puritan Protestantism, to have rather a more straightlaced view of things than a lot of cultures do.
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Citations from David and St Maximillian where one meets God in shuffle and noise during corporate worship?
 
maurin said:
Citations from David and St Maximillian where one meets God in shuffle and noise during corporate worship?
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As to David, try, say, Ps. 149:2-3. I disagree with the people who say those Psalms mean we need tambourines at Mass, but it’s definitely describing corporate worship. As to Maximilian Kolbe, I was being slightly more facetious, but I think they met God however they could under his circumstances – plenty of noise and shuffle, I would imagine.

My basic points are, one, that there are legitimate cultural differences in the realm of spirituality and how a group of people expresses it collectively, and, two, that something like hand-holding if done badly, can detract from worship of God and shift focus inappropriately to each other, but if done well can unify and thereby amplify the act of worship. Which way it’ll pan out depends on the people, their customs, the surroundings, and a variety of other things. If a family joins hands around the table to say Grace, there probably aren’t too many of even the most die-hard traditionalists who would respond, “Well, it was nice, but just think how much better if they hadn’t been holding hands. Would’ve been focused on God then.”
 
MarkThompson said:
As to David, try, say, Ps. 149:2-3. I disagree with the people who say those Psalms mean we need tambourines at Mass, but it’s definitely describing corporate worship. As to Maximilian Kolbe, I was being slightly more facetious, but I think they met God however they could under his circumstances – plenty of noise and shuffle, I would imagine.

My basic points are, one, that there are legitimate cultural differences in the realm of spirituality and how a group of people expresses it collectively, and, two, that something like hand-holding if done badly, can detract from worship of God and shift focus inappropriately to each other, but if done well can unify and thereby amplify the act of worship. Which way it’ll pan out depends on the people, their customs, the surroundings, and a variety of other things. If a family joins hands around the table to say Grace, there probably aren’t too many of even the most die-hard traditionalists who would respond, “Well, it was nice, but just think how much better if they hadn’t been holding hands. Would’ve been focused on God then.”
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. Will you next advocate liturgical dancing ? Of course not, but the point is that the tambourines over the millennia have been replaced by organ and Chant. And since St Maximillian met his death in a concentration camp, I hardly believe the circumstances could be considered normal state of affairs.

My basic point remains the same.
 
They do this a lot down here. Most of the churches I’ve been at have this, especially around Christmas and other feast days. I for one am not a fan. But that’s mainly cos I don’t like people invading my personal space. And some people are quite pushy about it, which I think is kinda rude, its almost as bad as people deciding to leave after communion and pushing past you while yuo’re on your knees trying to pray.
 
MarkThompson said:
And so does mine. And I still don’t like hand-holding at Mass, nor do I do it.
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And yet you defend it and offer as support the psalm and st maximillian. When pressed for substantiation, you decline.

Why defend something that can’t be substantiated, you claim you dislike and do not do? I mean no disrespect, and I certainly do not intend to annoy, but I am curious as to why?
 
maurin said:
And yet you defend it and offer as support the psalm and st maximillian. When pressed for substantiation, you decline.

Why defend something that can’t be substantiated, you claim you dislike and do not do? I mean no disrespect, and I certainly do not intend to annoy, but I am curious as to why?
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I’m not sure what I have to “substantiate,” nor did I know I’d ever been pressed for it. For your part, you’ve managed to engage on one or two minor, flippant, or irrelevant points, and mostly ignore the larger discussion, including any discussion of cultural differences, any response to my hypotheticals, etc. I feel like 90% of would-be discourse gets lost when I write several paragraphs and you pick out one small point and answer nothing but, “Well, prove where he said that.”

And it’s not like I’m on this board so that by deft argument I can convince the world that they should adopt my liturgical preferences. Part of being an honest, intellectual person is to meet questions with fair discourse and a spirit of inquiry, rather than with sophistical discourse and a spirit of argumentation. I like to defend things against misconceptions and misguided criticisms, even (perhaps especially) when there were perfectly legitimate criticisms that could have been made instead.
 
corsair said:
As a matter of fact, our Abp, issued a strong request (nobody seems to want to issue an order) to NOT hold hands during the Pater Noster. This request was issued about 7 years ago and was promptly ignored (you expected something different?)
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We were given a couple of instructions a number of years ago.
Firstly, we were told to begin standing at the words “Pray, my brothers and sisters, that theses sacrifices …”
Secondly, we were told not to hold hands during the Our Father. Our parish stopped the practice almost overnight. (During the H1N1 nonsense the decree was sent out not to hold hands – so I suppose some parishes persisted.)
MarkThompson said:
But the Mass, after all, is not an individual prayer. It is a corporate act of worship. Where you are, you presumably have a lot of Latin American … zest at the Mass, and because everyone is different I can assure you that just as you find chattering, handholding people almost incomprehensible, they too would find someone incomprehensible who said, “Look, all I want to do is go to Mass in silence, not interact with anybody, and pray along by myself from my missal as the priest says the service silently – is that so much to ask? And no music, please, it’s distracting.” That’s a point of view I’ve seen more than one person express on this board, and, sure, it’s one perfectly legitimate way to worship.
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(The following is not directed at you Mark. I’m using part of your post as a jumping off point.)
My problem with chattering and all other distractions (including the timing of the sign of peace) is a concern of mine that many parishioners are not at all aware that they are in the very presence of God. That He is physically present. And after the consecration while our Lord lays exposed on the Alter we simply turn away from Him (to shake hands) rather than being humbly in awe.
The God that created the universe and holds it together every moment is physically there in the tabernacle.
During the prayer of consecration the Holy Ghost descends – simple bread and wine become the actual, physical Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. +
Given these facts, how should we be behaving, and dressing for that matter, when in His almighty, awesome and loving PRESENCE ?
 
roadsend said:
Sounds like Holy Rosary in Portland, the only church within a day’s round trip, where I can attend a Novus Ordo Liturgy and feel that I have actually been to a Catholic Mass.
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Yes, it was. Although it is too bad that the church is being renovated, thus Mass was held in the parish hall.
 
The_Reginator said:
We were given a couple of instructions a number of years ago.
Firstly, we were told to begin standing at the words “Pray, my brothers and sisters, that theses sacrifices …”
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I know of a couple of parishes in this area that stand after this and I’ve always wondered where that came from.
 
damooster said:
I know of a couple of parishes in this area that stand after this and I’ve always wondered where that came from.
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We always stand as soon as the priest begins to say those words. I now live somewhere else where they don’t stand and I (on the other hand) have been wondering why. In fact, it is actually confusing in the parish. Sometimes they actually stand, sometimes they don’t or better still; some people stand while others don’t. 🤷
 
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