Holding Hands & the Our Father

[CB_Catholic]

I wouldn’t say it’s excessive.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I have been on CAF for 6 years and that is one thing that is very noticeable, and, yes, excessive–the number of posts devoted to hand-holding during the Our Father, and hand-shaking during the sign of peace. I have learned every way possible to avoid touching your fellow worshipper, from looking down at the floor and clasping one’s hands tightly together, to strategic areas to sit in the church to avoid contact with people, to pretending to sneeze in your hands so the people around you will be grossed out and won’t want to shake, to wearing gloves, and a few more things.
No one can deny that this is a very popular subject.

We have a Pope that practically jumps out of his vehicle to grab and touch and embrace people, violating all common sense security, and putting himself in considerable danger, and yet we sit in our churches thinking up ways to avoid being touched during perfectly legitimate times during Mass. There are no rubrics for what to do with your hands during the Our Father, so it is permissible despite the nay-sayers, and shaking hands during the sign of peace is the custom and perfectly acceptable. I can see if one is sick or immunocompromised, or has arthritic fingers, or is phobic, but really, are we so insulated that we can’t bear another person holding our hand for a short period of time?

Jesus touched people all the time. All the time. And he let people touch him. He even used his own spittle to heal blindness. Would that gross us out today? Many great Saints served others by cleansing their leprous, nasty, purulent wounds, bathing their filthy bodies, etc.
And we can’t bother to take a hand offered to us? What have we become?

I realize this will ruffle many feathers, esp. here, but I don’t care. I think it is time this was said. We have a reputation for being an unfriendly Church, as many converts have complained about–why? I thought being Catholic was all about getting out of your comfort zone. Is it?

 

[ProVobis]

we sit in our churches thinking up ways to avoid being touched

By the same token there are people who look for excuses TO hold hands with someone else (a pretty girl, maybe?), that have nothing to do with prayer. How did this practice start, if it’s not specified in the rubrics? No thinking or planning there?

 

[gracepoole]

I have been on CAF for 6 years and that is one thing that is very noticeable, and, yes, excessive–the number of posts devoted to hand-holding during the Our Father, and hand-shaking during the sign of peace. I have learned every way possible to avoid touching your fellow worshipper, from looking down at the floor and clasping one’s hands tightly together, to strategic areas to sit in the church to avoid contact with people, to pretending to sneeze in your hands so the people around you will be grossed out and won’t want to shake, to wearing gloves, and a few more things.
No one can deny that this is a very popular subject.

We have a Pope that practically jumps out of his vehicle to grab and touch and embrace people, violating all common sense security, and putting himself in considerable danger, and yet we sit in our churches thinking up ways to avoid being touched during perfectly legitimate times during Mass. There are no rubrics for what to do with your hands during the Our Father, so it is permissible despite the nay-sayers, and shaking hands during the sign of peace is the custom and perfectly acceptable. I can see if one is sick or immunocompromised, or has arthritic fingers, or is phobic, but really, are we so insulated that we can’t bear another person holding our hand for a short period of time?

Jesus touched people all the time. All the time. And he let people touch him. He even used his own spittle to heal blindness. Would that gross us out today? Many great Saints served others by cleansing their leprous, nasty, purulent wounds, bathing their filthy bodies, etc.
And we can’t bother to take a hand offered to us? What have we become?

I realize this will ruffle many feathers, esp. here, but I don’t care. I think it is time this was said. We have a reputation for being an unfriendly Church, as many converts have complained about–why? I thought being Catholic was all about getting out of your comfort zone. Is it?

Yes – excessive pretty much says it:

Holding hands during the Our Father?

Raising interlocked hands during the doxology?

Is this appropriate during Mass?

Holding hands at Our Father?

No one told me we weren’t supposed to hold hands!

Sign of Peace (handshake) during Mass

Posture in saying the Lord’s Prayer in Mass

Sign of Peace: liturgical abuse?

Sign of Peace during OF

Holding hands during the Lord’s Prayer – Respectfully Declining

Sign of Peace with a limp handshake

And that’s only going back 8 months.

 

[Kielbasi]

The sign of peace used to be a kiss of peace in the early Church. I think you are being too scrupulous about the whole thing. Others will disagree with me and say that it is abuse.

I hope you find what you are looking for in the Roman Catholic Church and look forward to reading about your conversion.

-Tim-

I’m sure that was true back in antiquity, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t a major change for people today.

50 years ago, the sign of peace wasn’t done at all and many people are uncomfortable with it as it is a lot different than when they were a kid.

 

[Diana_Catherine]

But it is very weird to me that the only churches in town that kneel for Communion are the Protestants, and they don’t even believe in transubstantiation.

I think that is weird too. I used to go to a Methodist church that everyone knelt down at the communion rail to receive. Praying Catholics return to kneeling since we do have the Real Presence.

 

[TimothyH]

I’m sure that was true back in antiquity, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t a major change for people today.

50 years ago, the sign of peace wasn’t done at all and many people are uncomfortable with it as it is a lot different than when they were a kid.

We are going to be intimately united with the people all around us in heaven, more intimately united to them than we were to anyone or anything here on earth.

If we are uncomfortable holding hands with fellow member’s of Christ’s body during the most sublime prayer while we are here on earth, then we have a long way to go before we are ready for heaven.

A long, long way.

-Tim-

 

[kykid]

I think that those who choose not to hold hands during the Our Father are simply what we call backward and socially awkward. It is a sign of our unity, unity that our Lord desired we have. Remember, he wanted us to be one as He and the Father are one.

My advice: quit being a fuddy-duddy and hold hands. You might grow to appreciate the symbolism.

 

[Diana_Catherine]

I have been on CAF for 6 years and that is one thing that is very noticeable, and, yes, excessive–the number of posts devoted to hand-holding during the Our Father, and hand-shaking during the sign of peace. I have learned every way possible to avoid touching your fellow worshipper, from looking down at the floor and clasping one’s hands tightly together, to strategic areas to sit in the church to avoid contact with people, to pretending to sneeze in your hands so the people around you will be grossed out and won’t want to shake, to wearing gloves, and a few more things.
No one can deny that this is a very popular subject.

We have a Pope that practically jumps out of his vehicle to grab and touch and embrace people, violating all common sense security, and putting himself in considerable danger, and yet we sit in our churches thinking up ways to avoid being touched during perfectly legitimate times during Mass. There are no rubrics for what to do with your hands during the Our Father, so it is permissible despite the nay-sayers, and shaking hands during the sign of peace is the custom and perfectly acceptable. I can see if one is sick or immunocompromised, or has arthritic fingers, or is phobic, but really, are we so insulated that we can’t bear another person holding our hand for a short period of time?

Jesus touched people all the time. All the time. And he let people touch him. He even used his own spittle to heal blindness. Would that gross us out today? Many great Saints served others by cleansing their leprous, nasty, purulent wounds, bathing their filthy bodies, etc.
And we can’t bother to take a hand offered to us? What have we become?

I realize this will ruffle many feathers, esp. here, but I don’t care. I think it is time this was said. We have a reputation for being an unfriendly Church, as many converts have complained about–why? I thought being Catholic was all about getting out of your comfort zone. Is it?

Yes – excessive pretty much says it:

Holding hands during the Our Father?

Raising interlocked hands during the doxology?

Is this appropriate during Mass?

Holding hands at Our Father?

No one told me we weren’t supposed to hold hands!

Sign of Peace (handshake) during Mass

Posture in saying the Lord’s Prayer in Mass

Sign of Peace: liturgical abuse?

Sign of Peace during OF

Holding hands during the Lord’s Prayer – Respectfully Declining

Sign of Peace with a limp handshake

And that’s only going back 8 months.

I can certainly understand your concern but this is something you should think about when you see these questions appear, especially if you are concerned about being a friendly Catholic. The world is a very large place and people are coming into the Catholic church everyday and many want to go somewhere for answers so they come to the Catholic Answers forum and ask a question. Sometimes it is a very familiar question to us that has been asked many times but maybe to the person asking it, who may be a new Catholic and is just starting out trying to learn what is right and what to do or not to do it is a new subject and to some it may be a very exciting new topic. The list from gracepoole should be encouraging. It tells us people are interested in learning how to properly attend Mass and be the best Catholics they can be.

So, I guess what I am saying is we need to be friendly and kind and answer the new people their questions and help them find their way in the Catholic faith. As we evangelize and help bring people into the faith we can’t get frustrated with their questions.

God bless.

 

[larsont7]

I have been on CAF for 6 years and that is one thing that is very noticeable, and, yes, excessive–the number of posts devoted to hand-holding during the Our Father, and hand-shaking during the sign of peace. I have learned every way possible to avoid touching your fellow worshipper, from looking down at the floor and clasping one’s hands tightly together, to strategic areas to sit in the church to avoid contact with people, to pretending to sneeze in your hands so the people around you will be grossed out and won’t want to shake, to wearing gloves, and a few more things.
No one can deny that this is a very popular subject.

We have a Pope that practically jumps out of his vehicle to grab and touch and embrace people, violating all common sense security, and putting himself in considerable danger, and yet we sit in our churches thinking up ways to avoid being touched during perfectly legitimate times during Mass. There are no rubrics for what to do with your hands during the Our Father, so it is permissible despite the nay-sayers, and shaking hands during the sign of peace is the custom and perfectly acceptable. I can see if one is sick or immunocompromised, or has arthritic fingers, or is phobic, but really, are we so insulated that we can’t bear another person holding our hand for a short period of time?

Jesus touched people all the time. All the time. And he let people touch him. He even used his own spittle to heal blindness. Would that gross us out today? Many great Saints served others by cleansing their leprous, nasty, purulent wounds, bathing their filthy bodies, etc.
And we can’t bother to take a hand offered to us? What have we become?

I realize this will ruffle many feathers, esp. here, but I don’t care. I think it is time this was said. We have a reputation for being an unfriendly Church, as many converts have complained about–why? I thought being Catholic was all about getting out of your comfort zone. Is it?

Perhaps it has nothing to do with touching itself, but rather the fact that an innovation was introduced to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass without the permission of the Holy See, and has only been permitted since it became commonplace and many bishops didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. There’s a time for holding hands and a time for hugs; I just don’t believe that time is during the Mass. Our parish has socials after Mass. I get plenty of hugs and hand shaking done during that time.

My problem is not with the holding hands in itself, but rather how the innovation came to be and the potential consequences that introducing new innovations can have. Forget about the infamous “Clown Masses” everyone talks about. Just in the past year, we’ve seen the Super Soaker Mass, the Star Wars Mass, and I recall something about a Flying Fish Mass. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is about Jesus Christ, and when innovations are introduced, the Mass becomes more about us than about Him.

Tell me where you draw the line on what is acceptable and what is not:

Singing the Our Father, hands folded
Singing the Our Father, hands upraised
Singing the Our Father, hands held with your neighbor
Singing the Our Father, hands held with your neighbor while swaying
Singing the Our Father, hands held with your neighbor while dancing in the aisles
Singing the Our Father, hands held with your neighbor circled around the altar

Of all these choices, there’s only one that I haven’t personally seen at a Mass I attended. The question is how far are we willing to go before we say enough is enough. Again, is the Mass about Our Lord, or is it about what makes me feel good?

 

[ProVobis]

Jesus touched people all the time. All the time. And he let people touch him. He even used his own spittle to heal blindness. Would that gross us out today? Many great Saints served others by cleansing their leprous, nasty, purulent wounds, bathing their filthy bodies, etc.
And we can’t bother to take a hand offered to us? What have we become?

One can touch without any physical contact. Wasn’t it an act of faith when the centurion suggested “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say with the word, and my servant will be healed.” ?

 

[CB_Catholic]

By the same token there are people who look for excuses TO hold hands with someone else (a pretty girl, maybe?), that have nothing to do with prayer. How did this practice start, if it’s not specified in the rubrics? No thinking or planning there?

I think this is a straw man argument on your part, and I think you know it. I would be ashamed to make such an insinuation about fellow Christians. How it started, I don’t know, like many customs, the beginning is nebulous, but the Church leaders have not seen fit to forbid it or to proscribe a hand position during the Our Father. That does not give you the right, however, to trash your brothers and sisters in Christ by insinuating such a thing.

I’ve said my piece. Have a good night.

 

[Diana_Catherine]

I have started going to the Catholic Church on Sundays. I’ve noticed that in both places of Catholic worship I’ve attended here people hold my hand during the Our Father. Is that correct practice? If not, what should I do in this situation?

I can’t answer to whether it is correct or not or if it a liturgical abuse, hopefully someone else can answer that for you but it is not something you have to do. I don’t because I know I will be greeting them with the sign of peace in just a few moments and during the Our Father I am addressing God, so I fold my hands and close my eyes. It has nothing to do with not wanting to touch people as some make it seem. People around me are very friendly, know me and accept that I don’t hold hands during the Our Father and there are no hard feelings. Many are my friends. I have only been to one parish where everyone held hands, otherwise I have always noticed that there are those that do and those that don’t.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I’m not a young woman (late 50s) so perhaps I’m simply not as with-it and knowledgeable as so many are here who are calling people who do not hold hands unchristian, fuddy-duddies, socially inept, etc.

I have seen some of the deepest ‘communal’ gestures made not by physical touching but by empathy --gazes locked in understanding, love, and sharing, for example. We are physical people but that physical aspect need not always involve touching of the hands.

I have read passages of Scripture where Jesus did not even touch a person, yet the person was healed (the paralytic man, the woman who herself touched not Him, but His cloak, the centurion whose servant was sick and who knew that Christ had only to speak to heal, not to physically touch). . .so it does not appear to me (especially as handholding at the Our Father was not known to Catholic Christians–and is still I believe not done among the Orthodox) that it is a ritual which should be preferred to holding ones hands folded in prayer, as most have done throughout the centuries.

If one wishes to join hands with another–and the other wishes it too–well and good. But why should the wishes --and it is simply that, a wish --this gesture was not ‘started’ or mandated by the Church–of one group be promoted not just as something good, but as something so much better than not handholding that the non handholders are treated as though they must be physically or emotionally ill not to engage in a voluntary modern gesture?

As I said, I’m not so young, and I’m certainly not so ‘Christian’ in that with my arthritic hands and introverted person I don’t choose for myself to hold hands as a preference, unlike those who are probably further along the path to sainthood than I am in their physical ‘reaching out’, but I can’t help but think that the kind of scolding, almost contemptuous dismissal of non-handholders as emotionally lacking etc. isn’t exactly the way (as Pope Francis might put it) of winning souls to a different point of view.

God bless.

 

[ProVobis]

I think this is a straw man argument on your part, and I think you know it. I would be ashamed to make such an insinuation about fellow Christians. How it started, I don’t know, like many customs, the beginning is nebulous, but the Church leaders have not seen fit to forbid it or to proscribe a hand position during the Our Father. That does not give you the right, however, to trash your brothers and sisters in Christ by insinuating such a thing.

Say what you want but physical contact outside the proscribed handshake of peace is an invasion of space. If you welcome it, fine. If not, than that’s your right too. People have sued for a lot less.

 

[TimothyH]

One can touch without any physical contact. Wasn’t it an act of faith when the centurion suggested “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say with the word, and my servant will be healed.” ?

The centurion was a God fearer, someone who believed in God but had not been circumcised, had not yet become Jewish. The Centurion knew that Jesus would have been ritually unclean had he come into his home. The Centurion was respecting the Jewish Law - God’s law. His respect for God’s law in spite of his desire for Jesus to comet to his home and heal his son is why Jesus said that no one in Israel had as much faith as this roman soldier.

But Jesus also corrected the error of the pharisees who thought that they were made unclean when they touched a non-Jew, a sinner, or someone who was ritually unclean. Jesus touched many non-Jews, sinners and unclean people, and allowed them to touch him.

***And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. **(Matthew 8:3)

**for she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I shall be made well.” **(Matthew 9:21)

and besought him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment; and as many as touched it were made well. (Matthew 14:36)

But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” (Matthew 17:7)

**And Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they received their sight and followed him. **(Matthew 20:34)

**And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” *(Luke 7:14)

All of these he healed, showing that the true believer in God is not made clean by the sinner but it is the sinner who is made clean by our touch.

I don’t see what the big deal is. We don’t hesitate to shake someone’s hand at a business meeting when there is a chance for profit, why should we be afraid to hold someone’s hand for about 45 seconds when Jesus is present on the altar and we are praying the prayer that he himself gave us?

I’m not saying that we have to hold hands. I sometimes don’t. But we should never, ever be afraid to hold their hands if they offer. It is great privilege for someone to allow us to touch them, and we should touch them with great reverence.

-Tim-

 

[ProVobis]

I don’t see what the big deal is. We don’t hesitate to shake someone’s hand at a business meeting when there is a chance for profit, why should we be afraid to hold someone’s hand for about 45 seconds when Jesus is present on the altar and we are praying the prayer that he himself gave us?

I think this is a straw man argument on your part, and I think you know it. I would be ashamed to make such an insinuation about fellow Christians. How it started, I don’t know, like many customs, the beginning is nebulous, but the Church leaders have not seen fit to forbid it or to proscribe a hand position during the Our Father. That does not give you the right, however, to trash your brothers and sisters in Christ by insinuating such a thing.

Say what you want but physical contact outside the proscribed handshake of peace is an invasion of space. I’ve worked with people who’ve physically contacted me. Sometimes friendly, sometimes not. If you welcome it, fine. If not, then that’s your right too. People have sued for a lot less. That’s why a lot of companies have classes on harassment.

 

[FAB]

So if this is a liturgical abuse, is it sinful to hold hands during the Our Father knowing it is not proper?

It’s not a sin and the term liturgical abuse is to feely thrown around. If it is the tradition of the parish that you are attending, it is not a liturgical abuse. Many want to read only part of what is written. According to the canon, if there is a practice that is in a place for 10 years it is then part of the tradition of that area and is allowed.
One bishop made a decision for his dioceses, it is not universal and the information from the archive is more than 10 years old.
It even it states, family and groups are allowed to hold hands.
do so or not, it’s up to you.
Deacon Frank

 

[Diana_Catherine]

I don’t see what the big deal is. We don’t hesitate to shake someone’s hand at a business meeting when there is a chance for profit, why should we be afraid to hold someone’s hand for about 45 seconds when Jesus is present on the altar and we are praying the prayer that he himself gave us?

I’m not saying that we have to hold hands. I sometimes don’t. But we should never, ever be afraid to hold their hands if they offer. It is great privilege for someone to allow us to touch them, and we should touch them with great reverence.

-Tim-

What I don’t understand:shrug: is why praying the Our Father without holding hands has to be referred to as “being afraid” to hold someone’s hands or “afraid” to touch someone. I highly doubt that most people don’t hold hands out of fear of touch, especially since in just a few minutes afterwards they are shaking peoples hands. It should be respected and not ridiculed that it is a chosen way to worship God in praying the Our Father at that moment and that it is not out of fear of holding hands…

 

[clem456]

Holding hands…what’s next?

 

[Diana_Catherine]

Holding hands…what’s next?

and there is my point.