Liturgical hand gestures

[IrishAm]

We worship as a community do we not?

I once attended a parish where no one held hands and during the entire Mass, they just kept their hands folded ( was a brand new Catholic, so I was looking around to learn what I needed to do). Rarely was their any expression on their faces. I made a mental note Never to attend that parish again.

I raise my hands (though not over my head), I sway to the hymns and hold hands during the Our Father, I gesture towards father when he says Peace Be With You as I want him to know that I also wish him peace. I pray the Mass in a true community of believers and receive my Lord in the Blessed Sacrament with reverence and awe and love.

But if this form of Community Worship bothers you, then please don’t look around and notice what others are doing.

There have been many times when these gestures etc have made me feel closer to the community with whom I gathered. They have never, however, made me feel closer to God. And so I stopped focusing on others (as you suggested) and focus my attention on God. (I also stopped the gyrations . . . )

 

[bpbasilphx]

Of late, this and other bodily acrobatics like hand holding, people swaying like a bunch of trees in a windstorm during the “singing” of the Our Father and other silliness seems to be on the rise.

This “swaying” is actually all the famous (or notorious) Ethiopian liturgical dancing is.

 

[Ruthie]

(judging by the age group that still does aerobics at Mass)

A hopeful note… my parish’s Jan 1 Mass was pretty well attended, mostly by the folks who never miss a Mass. One of the hymns was “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” Some ill-advised person in the choir loft started clapping during the chorus, insistently, all the way through it. *Nobody joined him/her! *

Aerobics in Mass… snort!

God bless us all!

Ruthie

 

[PrayHarder]

I was at a mass once where the music leader said that everyone should participate in a full body celebration (or something of that sort) of the mass with hand gestures, singing, etc. It was so very distracting and I felt like I was at some sort of Christian rock concert than a holy celebration. My feelings were confirmed when immediately after the last song everyone started clapping.

I know some people think that things like this build community. But personally, I don’t see how reaching out across all aisles to form a giant chain for the Our Father builds community. In my opinion, keep the community building at other parish events and keep Jesus at the center of mass.

 

[Newbie2]

Inasmuch as we worship as a community, that fact is already displayed when we come together for Mass. No further manifestation of that is needed. When we over-emphasize the community aspect, we make the horizontal aspect of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass more important than the vertical.

Look at the arms of the cross. The vertical arm of the cross is much longer than the horizontal one. The vertical dimension ponts towards the Triune God whom we come to worship. The horizontal dimension is the community itself. When we make gestures of the community more important, then, we have lost the point of the Mass. We fail to take into account that the veil between heaven and earth is lifted and we come into contact with the divine presence of God.

So the GIRM isn’t intended to have us worship as “community”?

 

[FrDavid96]

So the GIRM isn’t intended to have us worship as “community”?

Not when it means that the local community is not in harmony with the entire Church.

No local community has any right, nor any reason, to invent or perpetuate it’s own gestures at the Mass. Doing so is a violation of the universal community that is the Church.

 

[Tigg]

Not when it means that the local community is not in harmony with the entire Church.

No local community has any right, nor any reason, to invent or perpetuate it’s own gestures at the Mass. Doing so is a violation of the universal community that is the Church.

Fr. David - we are all so glad you post to these threads!

 

[Tigg]

So the GIRM isn’t intended to have us worship as “community”?

I am in the process of listening to an old series of tapes by Fr. Peter Stravinskas, a liturgical expert, on “Redemptionis Sacramentum.” He explains in the most beautiful way that when individual liturgists or priests try to insert their own brand of “creativity” into the Mass this actually can destroy the unity of Church worship. There has to be a centrality in liturgical worship and the rationale of the regulations, rather than displaying rigidity, actually will allow a greater participation of the laity.

 

[dancny]

Sorry I was away from the site for awhile.

What were the gestures?

If I could remember the exact psalm it would be better. The choir director used a psalm different from the one designated for the day, a common practice here I HAVE spoken to the pastor about.

As the words of the response were sung you raised you right arm over your head, the you left in swinging out gesture and then brought both into your chest as an embrace. I can’t remember anything else off hand. sounds like not much but these things can creep in and be rather …distracting(?) in a parish.

 

[FrDavid96]

Sorry I was away from the site for awhile.

What were the gestures?

If I could remember the exact psalm it would be better. The choir director used a psalm different from the one designated for the day, a common practice here I HAVE spoken to the pastor about.

As the words of the response were sung you raised you right arm over your head, the you left in swinging out gesture and then brought both into your chest as an embrace. I can’t remember anything else off hand. sounds like not much but these things can creep in and be rather …distracting(?) in a parish.

???
It doesn’t matter which psalm was used. Gestures like this have no place in the Mass. You’re right “distracting” is the word…one of many words.

 

[benedictgal]

Not when it means that the local community is not in harmony with the entire Church.

No local community has any right, nor any reason, to invent or perpetuate it’s own gestures at the Mass. Doing so is a violation of the universal community that is the Church.

That is what everyone from Pope Benedict XVI to the Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and the current Secretary of that same Congregation have been saying.

This is an exerpt from Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith’s speech that I was privileged to hear when I was in St. Louis:

Thus, with time this expression assumed a profoundly anthropological orientation. It entered liturgical vocabulary as something that expresses the necessary human action in Liturgy. In a socio-cultural context that tends to reduce the importance
given to the role of the divine in human life and which gives pride of place to that which is essentially human and “this worldly”, the danger in positing a so called art of celebrating, to liturgy, in a purely humanistic sense is not minimal. Indeed, if Ars Celebrandi is to be understood as something based on human skills only, then, we have missed the point altogether. Whatever serves as the foundation for creative human art and skills, cannot be ipso facto transferred to Liturgy. But in some circles any acceptance of the term ars celebrandi is interpreted to mean a glorification of a sense of horizontalism.

…The Pope in his book “The Spirit of the Liturgy” defines Actuosa Participatio as a call to a total assimilation in the very action of Christ the High Priest. It is in no way a call to activism, a misunderstanding that spread widely in the aftermath of
“Sacrosanctum Concilium”. Stated Cardinal Ratzinger: “what does it [active participation] mean ….? Unfortunately the word was very quickly misunderstood to mean something external, entailing a need for general activity, as if as many people as possible, as often as possible, should be visibly engaged in action” [Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2000 p. 171].

We know that in many places this led to the amalgamation of the Sanctuary with the Assembly, the clericalisation of the laity and the filling up of the Sanctuary with the noisy and distracting presence of a large number of people; one could say that virtually Wall Street moved into the Sanctuary. But was that really what the Conciliar Fathers
advocated? Cardinal Ratzinger does not think so. For him “the real ‘action’ in the Liturgy in which we are all supposed to participate is the action of God himself. This is what is new and
distinctive about Christian Liturgy: God himself acts and does what is essential” [ibid p. 173].

This kind of participation in the very action of Christ, the high priest, requires from us nothing less than an attitude of being totally absorbed in Him. Says the Cardinal “the point is that, ultimately, the difference between the Actio Christi and our own action is done away with. There is only one action, which is at the same time his and ours – ours because we have become ‘one body and one spirit ‘with him” [ibid p. 174]. Active participation, thus, is not a giving way to any activism but an integral and total assimilation into the person of Christ who is truly the high Priest of that eternal and un-interrupted celebration of the heavenly Liturgy.

Thus, we don’t need to engage in insipid acts in order to “participate” in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. What the good Archbishop suggested, what Pope Benedict XVI observed in his writings, is what we need to do. Silly hand gestures add nothing to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and are misguided attempts at getting the faithful to participate.

 

[BSHoop96]

We worship as a community do we not?

I once attended a parish where no one held hands and during the entire Mass, they just kept their hands folded ( was a brand new Catholic, so I was looking around to learn what I needed to do). Rarely was their any expression on their faces. I made a mental note Never to attend that parish again.

I raise my hands (though not over my head), I sway to the hymns and hold hands during the Our Father, I gesture towards father when he says Peace Be With You as I want him to know that I also wish him peace. I pray the Mass in a true community of believers and receive my Lord in the Blessed Sacrament with reverence and awe and love.

But if this form of Community Worship bothers you, then please don’t look around and notice what others are doing.

I think your words indicate that you wish him peace. You might be interested to know that at our penance service none of the 5 or 6 priests on the front row responded to Father with anything other than words. I can only hope that the hand flickers in our congregation noticed.

 

[Newbie2]

There has to be a centrality in liturgical worship and the rationale of the regulations, rather than displaying rigidity, actually will allow a greater participation of the laity.

Not when it means that the local community is not in harmony with the entire Church.

No local community has any right, nor any reason, to invent or perpetuate it’s own gestures at the Mass. Doing so is a violation of the universal community that is the Church.

Yes, of course. I was responding to BG’s statement, which I found confusing, considering BG’s previous posts:

Inasmuch as we worship as a community, that fact is already displayed when we come together for Mass. No further manifestation of that is needed. When we over-emphasize the community aspect, we make the horizontal aspect of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass more important than the vertical.

If no other manifistation of community were to be necessary than coming together for mass, there would be no need for a “GIRM”, which specifies how we participate in mass as a community; we could do our own thing and still be a world-wide community, no?

Perhaps I misunderstand your meaning here?

 

[benedictgal]

I was responding to BG’s statement, which I found confusing, considering BG’s previous posts:

If no other manifistation of community were to be necessary than coming together for mass, there would be no need for a “GIRM”, which specifies how we participate in mass as a community; we could do our own thing and still be a world-wide community, no?

Perhaps I misunderstand your meaning here?

Yes, you did. We should not have to do anything other than what is already prescribed for us to do during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We don’t need extra-curriculars like silly hand gestures and hand-holding to manifest community. When we make the community more important than what we are really there at the Mass to do, then we fall prey to horizontalism.

 

[Tigg]

**When we make the community more important than what we are really there at the Mass to do, then we fall prey to horizontalism**.

AND we lose a sense of the Sacred Mystery that is transpiring on the altar.