Instead of worrying about holding hands

[baltobetsy]

Here are my thoughts on hand holding.

By its very nature, because it involves more than one person, hand holding is a public, not a private act.

The rubrics refer to public acts, specifying what is to be done and saying nothing about what is not to be done. If a public act is not prescribed by the rubrics, you can safely assume it is not to be done.

There is nothing about hand holding in the rubrics; therefore it can be safely assumed that it is not to be done.

Private acts such as genuflecting and the use of holy water are irrelevant to this discussion.

Hand holding makes some people feel very good; it makes other people feel very bad. This does not foster unity. Public acts which do not foster unity should not be encouraged.

Betsy

 

[baltobetsy]

One additional point (for some reason the software won’t let me edit):

Concerning the topic of this thread: If nobody’s holding hands, nobody’s worrying about it. Once it starts, some people start reacting to it, and there goes their prayer.

Betsy

 

[baltobetsy]

Joseph Bilodeau:

My point in this discussion has been that those who object to others performing certain pious practices have failed to demonstrate that the forbidding of these practices has been “laid down by the Church.”

The problem here is a philosophical, logical one: you can disprove a positive statement, but you cannot prove a negative one. You are asking for proof of a negative.

The positive statement, “The Church says we are permitted to hold hands during the Our Father,” can easily be disproved.

The negative statement, “The Church does not intend to forbid holding hands during the Our Father,” cannot be proved without recourse to a positive statement such as that referenced above, which has never been made by the Church.

Betsy

 

[baltobetsy]

The negative statement, “The Church does not intend to forbid holding hands during the Our Father,” cannot be proved without recourse to a positive statement such as that referenced above, which has never been made by the Church.

Darn this editing problem! Please mentally replace the above sentence with:

The negative statement, “The Church does not permit holding hands during the Our Father,” cannot be proved without a specific statement to that effect, which does not exist. To ask that this statement be proved is to ask the impossible, but that does not eliminate the possibility that the statement is true. One can deduce its truth by the methods outlined in my earlier post.

Betsy

 

[javelin]

Thank you for your thoughts, baltobetsy.

By its very nature, because it involves more than one person, hand holding is a public, not a private act.

This is an interesting idea, but not definitively true. Public simply means “exposed to general view”, which is the case of any person’s choice of hand position during the entire liturgy.

If a public act is not prescribed by the rubrics, you can safely assume it is not to be done.

Following your logic here, since everything during the Mass is public, then every single minute action by every person must be explicitly in the GIRM, or it is not to be done. That simply CANNOT be true. If something is required, or expected for all, then and only then should it be considered a “public rubric”.

You also specifically said “safely assume” it is not to be done, which I can agree with. You are very “safe” in your “assumption” that not holding hands is OK, and no one is arguing to the contrary. But you and everyone else here so far have failed to show that hand-holding is bad or sinful. THAT is what I am looking for, because that would give cause for prohibiting a specific action by individuals during a part of the Mass where there is NO instruction in the GIRM as to what action people should be doing. If I and the person next to me wish to be a bit (Oh My!) less “safe” than you, that’s our choice.

And while I sympathize to you and everyone else who get irritated when other people hold hands, that is not sufficient evidence that hand-holding is bad! The behavior of some who treat you poorly because you elect not to hold hands is clearly BAD, and should be addressed, but that is no reason to ban hand-holding altogether. That is, IMHO, an extremely selfish reaction to the problem, because you are discounting the good intentions of the vast majority of those who do not act poorly during Mass. Saying that: “since some people act badly because of the hand-holding, everyone should not be able to hold hands” is like claiming “since some people drive recklessly, no noe should be allowed to drive at all”. It’s overkill that punishes innocent believers who have done nothing wrong.

“The Church does not permit holding hands during the Our Father,” cannot be proved without a specific statement to that effect, which does not exist.

Well, I’m glad we agree on something, then!!!

One can deduce its truth by the methods outlined in my earlier post.

Ah, but that deduction is your personal interpretation, and you have failed to show that your deduction is any more ture than my deduction.

I’m beginning to feel like we’re two Protestant Churches debating sacred beliefs using only the Bible and deduction to try to show our point. Thank the good Lord that He gave us the Chruch to speak definitively on matters of the deepest importance so that every tenet of our faith does not have to go through this exhaustive debating. (only very small things like “to hold or not to hold” require some discussion ).

In Christ,
javelin

 

[baltobetsy]

Perhaps I should have said “corporate” act instead of “public” act. Then my meaning would have been more clear.

You said: Following your logic here, since everything during the Mass is public, then every single minute action by every person must be explicitly in the GIRM, or it is not to be done. That simply CANNOT be true. If something is required, or expected for all, then and only then should it be considered a “public rubric”.

Once we take the words as I meant them (“corporate” as opposed to your definition of “public”), it is clear that I was not referring to “every single minute action by every person” being prescribed by the GIRM, but rather, the actions of the group as a whole being prescribed by the GIRM.

Javelin, the rubrics prescribe everything that we are to do externally as a group, as a liturgical gesture. If it’s not there we are not asked to do it. Until a direction for posture during the Our Father appears in the rubrics, there is to be no particular gesture by the congregation as a whole. If part of the group introduces a gesture and another part of the group does not participate in that gesture, there is a breakdown of unity, something which seems to be very precious to liturgical thinkers these days.

The effect of handholding, then, is warm fuzzies for some, annoyance for others, and lack of unity for all, which is precisely why it is better not to introduce gestures which are not specifically prescribed in the GIRM.

Betsy