Is the "orans" posture during Mass appropriate for congregants?

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blaskoman

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This posture seems to be peculiar to American parishioners. I never view such a posture when abroad.
 
blaskoman said:
This posture seems to be peculiar to American parishioners. I never view such a posture when abroad.
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Its not peculiar to the US. Every Mass here in the Philippines you see that and actually in many countries where I have attended Mass orans or half orans are common.
 
**Q:**Is the “orans” posture during Mass appropriate for congregants?
A: No.
 
Almost everyone at my parish does it but my family and I don’t, along with a couple others.
 
Its definately not just the US, about 1/3 of our congregation does it over here in the UK.

I don’t, however. Don’t feel the least bit comfortable doing it.
 
Cardinal Ratzinger in The Spirit of the Liturgy says:
“This is one of the primal gestures of man calling upon God and is found in virtually every part of the religious world.”
p. 203, The Spirit of the Liturgy
books.google.com/books?id=Wf0llOhrfY4C&pg=PA196&lpg=PA196&dq=orans+spirit+of+the+liturgy&source=bl&ots=b-SX4xycOH&sig=1K-pGkL_gjE0ZjdzPirEb6BXbDU&hl=en&ei=gNe_TpvpO4nfgQeX3fGlBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=orans&f=false

This posture may not be in the liturgical texts for the U.S., but the then-Cardinal’s remark is important to understand this posture’s legitimacy.
 
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