Orans for laity during Our Father

[pnewton]

I would like to see the document which states that bishops may mandate this posture for their diocese…What you must show is that it is within a bishop’s rights to create a law for liturgy in his diocese such as this.

We do not know that it has been “mandated”, promulgated or made a rubric. I questioned this earlier and there has been no response. Without the document, I do not think we should assume the bishop in error.

 

[e_c]

We do not know that it has been “mandated”, promulgated or made a rubric. I questioned this earlier and there has been no response. Without the document, I do not think we should assume the bishop in error.

Fair enough.

And with that, I bid you all adieu.

 

[otjm]

1. EWTN usually does not put out trash. Nor does Dr. Peters usually put out trash. So that’s why I appealed to them. And nobody has yet to address the actual content of either argument.

I don’t recall using the word “trash”. They certainly can offer an opinion. And it is just that.

1. The GIRM allows for variation, yes. So where there is allowance of variation, within those variations noted it is all the same liturgy under the same rubrics. However, when someone mandates an additional rubric which is not actually part of the liturgy, they have added something foreign - it is no longer an issue of uniformity but of unity. The very fact that there are distinct options at certain points seems to indicate that when it is legitimate to alter something in the liturgy, IT WILL BE EXPLICITLY NOTED.

Go see Father Ruggero’s post. Already answered.

1. I would like to see the document which states that bishops may mandate this posture for their diocese. If that document can be produced, I will be on my merry way, apologizing as I go for my belligerence and foolishness. If you mean that Rome has said that there is simply not a prescribed posture, then fine - that’s something quite obvious. But on the other hand, a bishop may certainly forbid actions that are not part of the rubrics. For instance, he may say that anyone wearing a rainbow sash is not to be admitted to Communion. He may mandate that priests not ride into Holy Thursday Mass on a donkey. Etc.

See Father Ruggero’s post.

1. It seems quite different to me. In the one, the congregation persists in a posture (standing) which happens to be the same as the celebrant (and which is extremely “general” anyway), which they had already been in for some time, OR they go down to kneel, distinct from the action of the celebrant. In the orans issue, the congregation imitates the action of the celebrant on cue… and it is a “special” action, unlike simply standing.

There are points in the liturgy where the priest has his hands palms together, fingers pointing out. So do some of the laity. That doesn’t seem to bother you, never mind the GIRM does not say that people can do that.

1. Sure it is older than the Church and is related to prayer. So is liturgical dance. What you must show is that it is within a bishop’s rights to create a law for liturgy in his diocese such as this. So there can’t be an appeal to history - the appeal must be to the law, which is always written and promulgated by the legitimate authority. It should not be hard to find.

Red herring on the liturgical dance, which in some cultures, is specifically allowed by the Church. I am not appealing to history; I am simply pointing out this is an ancient prayer format.

1. I don’t know what “license” has been granted for bishops to add such a rubric. Again, if you can provide that document, my tail will go between my legs and I will do you intellectual obeisance.

See Father Ruggero.

It might actually help to read his post, rather than spin through it and answer with an “okay but”.

The Church - Rome - is not made up of a bunch of idiots incapable of knowing what may be going on in various dioceses, or simply ignoring it.

Holding hands during the Our Father came from the Charismatic Renewal in the 60’s, as did the orans posture (although the latter seemed slower to spread). Rome has known about it for decades. Rome has re-written the GIRM several times, as well as sending out liturgical corrections and prohibitions. And not once has it addressed the matter of how the laity hold their hands.

The silence is deafening.

There are no liturgical police observing how people hold their hands - or don’t hold them - in Mass, making sure that the bishop of the diocese is informed; and there are no bishops administering punishments for how hands are held, or not held.

Nor am I aware of any polls taken as to who knows what, or doesn’t know what. Just my humble opinion, but I would suspect that we all could do more to pray for this country; to pray for a return to a moral life; to pray for an end to abortion; to pray for our homosexually oriented population; to pray for an increase in vocations; and to pray for the poor souls in Purgatory (which, having attended all too many funerals, seems to be a reality which no longer exists, as the dead all seem to be in heaven).

Instead, we repeatedly have people in deep angst over someone else’s posture during prayers in the Mass.

I guess it is all a matter of priorities. Mine are elsewhere than what my neighbor is doing in the pew.

 

[pianistclare]

My only wish is that when some folks clearly are not wanting to hold hands, that people refrain from forcing the issue.
Some people have really bad arthritis.

I enjoy reading these threads…I learn much. I really just wanted to subscribe.
Carry on!

 

[otjm]

My only wish is that when some folks clearly are not wanting to hold hands, that people refrain from forcing the issue.
Some people have really bad arthritis.

I enjoy reading these threads…I learn much. I really just wanted to subscribe.
Carry on!

Reminds me of what Archbishop Chaput said some years ago when he was in Colorado. Those who wish to, should do so, and those who wish to not do so, should not do so, and BOTH SIDES should treat the other in charity.

 

[ricmat]

Just out of curiosity, why can’t the Bishops agree on this?

In our parish right now, not only do we have no agreement on orans. We have dozens of people (all healthy) standing and sitting and kneeling and doing orans apparently at random, seemingly involved in their own personal liturgies. Certainly this is not what the Church wants.

 

[otjm]

Just out of curiosity, why can’t the Bishops agree on this?

In our parish right now, not only do we have no agreement on orans. We have dozens of people (all healthy) standing and sitting and kneeling and doing orans apparently at random, seemingly involved in their own personal liturgies. Certainly this is not what the Church wants.

Because bishops are people, like everyone else; they have opinions, likes, and dislikes.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Just out of curiosity, why can’t the Bishops agree on this?

In our parish right now, not only do we have no agreement on orans. We have dozens of people (all healthy) standing and sitting and kneeling and doing orans apparently at random, seemingly involved in their own personal liturgies. Certainly this is not what the Church wants.

The Bishops have no need to agree on anything in this particular regard.

The Council Fathers at Vatican II saw the need to establish rubrics for the lay faithful to assist them in attaining the full conscious and active participation they had not yet achieved
*29. Servers, lectors, commentators, and members of the choir also exercise a genuine liturgical function. They ought, therefore, to discharge their office with the sincere piety and decorum demanded by so exalted a ministry and rightly expected of them by God’s people.

Consequently they must all be deeply imbued with the spirit of the liturgy, each in his own measure, and they must be trained to perform their functions in a correct and orderly manner.

1. To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence.
2. The revision of the liturgical books must carefully attend to the provision of rubrics also for the people’s parts.*
   Beyond that, it is the liturgical assembly that celebrates Eucharist – and thus it is important to emphasise the genuine liturgical function each fulfills but it should not have the appearance of being so regimented as to give the impression of being automatons acting robotically or of a military unit executing a ceremonial manoeuvre.

I have no idea what you mean when you write of people involved in their own personal liturgies. One trusts there are not people praying the liturgy of the hours in the church or chapel as Eucharist is being celebrated.

When I preside at Eucharist, I see those making up the congregation doing any variety of things at various moments. Far from being disruptive, it indicates to me, by their gestures, that they are fully, consciously, and actively engaged with the rite. I am pleased to see the growing use of the orans posture in prayer

It was necessary for the Holy See to intervene when the Americans were using an overabundance of zeal in enforcing normative rubrics. One hopes that intervention to restrain the overzealous is not soon lost to the memory. By and large rubrics are not supposed to be seen as having an absolute value but they are to be weighed, according to theology, which can measure the rubric’s relative value.

In the case of the Our Father, the congregation is to be upstanding, according to the rubrics governing their posture. Obviously, those who cannot – or are better served by not standing – should not stand. That should go without saying.

As for what they are doing with their hands…folding them, resting them on the pew in front of them, extending them in the orans gesture, holding a hand missal, keeping them at their sides or clasped together or holding the hands of those around them, the rubrics are properly silent…just as they are silent about whether the person is upstanding on two feet or balancing on one foot or whether the head is inclined or not.

There are decisions properly left to the autonomous person who, again, is not an automaton executing a programmed choreography.

Because the diocesan bishop has a singular role relative to liturgy in his diocese, his directives should be dutifully complied with … but one trusts he uses his vast authority as the shepherd of the Particular Church entrusted to him with a maximum of discretion and a minimum of constraint.