Oran's Posture - Priest Only!?

[Duesenberg]

Simply put, it’s not all in the GIRM. Anyone taking the rather fundamentalist/naive view that everything is and that no variance can possibly be allowed is simply wrong.

On top of that the local ordinary (and not the GIRM) is the final word on liturgical matters in their (arch)dioceses, save obviously for graviora delicta or other grave liturgical abuses.

Here locally we have had more than one article of the GIRM formally suspended by the prelate. Either temporarily because we legitimately needed more time to get in compliance or because the prelate was involved in a political game at the USCCB level, or permanently because he felt an article was simply not usable (or could be met) in every parish in his (arch)diocese and he was going to allow defined options.

He has that authority like it or not and with it comes the responsibility for his pronouncements.

 

[Duesenberg]

I wonder if anyone has ever tried to employ this sort of reason to the “Oran’s Posture Question?”

Paragraph #172 of Redemptionis Sacramentum states the following with regard to: graviora delicta (the gravest of all grave sins):

Graviora delicta against the sanctity of the Most August Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Eucharist are to be handled in accordance with the ‘Norms concerning graviora delicta reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’,namely:

• b) the attempted celebration of the liturgical action of the Eucharistic Sacrifice or the simulation of the same;

Somewhere there has to be someone who has made the claim that the use of the Oran’s posture (perhaps in addition to other forbidden things mentioned in this thread) by the laity is an act of graviora delicta and should be treated as such?

How about those that (usually quietly) verbally follow the Mass verbatim? In conjunction with the Oran’s posture, would that be a case of graviora delicta?

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Quite a few. It is not a big deal. I like to think of what Cardinal Arinze said when he visited America. He asked why do some try to regiment the people of God. It doesn’t matter what is done with the hands. It is okay.

I found the video. The part about the orans is around 5:30 forward. The part about freedom and regimenting is around 53:00, but the whole video is great.

It seems to be an American fixation. It is quite remarkable for those of us who live in the rest of the world.

 

[Duesenberg]

Why does this topic even matter? When there are bigger issues that need our attention!!!

You could have simply skipped over it…

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Shouldn’t the GIRM then specify how the laity should position their hands during the Our Father? If the people are told what to do with their hands, it would make it less likely that spontaneous gestures would arise.

No. In fact, it is not supposed to give such specificity. There is absolutely no need for that specificity nor is it, actually, even possible or desirable. As the Cardinal Prefect stated earlier, the maxim is

to ensure within broad limits a certain uniformity of posture within the congregation for the various parts of the celebration of Holy Mass, and on the other, to not regulate posture rigidly

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I don’t have a dog in the fight. Both - holding hands and the orans - are done by the majority in my parish, and in most parishes in which I have attended Mass over the years. If the individual next to me in the pew wishes to hold hands, I will do so, out of charity. If they use the orans, I for one am not going to correct them. And if they do not hold hands, I don’t extend mine.

I think the matter was quite well addressed by Archbishop Chaput when, some years ago, he wrote:

The celebrant invites us to pray the words of Jesus in the “Our Father.” This is the prayer Jesus Himself taught us, and because of that, it’s the model prayer for the Church. How should we pray it?

A lot has been said in popular writing about our gestures at this point of the Mass. Do we fold our hands, or hold them outstretched, or hold hands with those around us? Some people have surprisingly strong feelings about this issue. Our answer to this question needs to come from the Church’s understanding of this moment in the Mass.

The priest stands with his arms outstretched as the prayer begins. The assembly should also stand. There are no options for gestures listed in the General Instruction for this part of the Mass. For many persons, folding their hands during the “Our Father” is the best way to express their prayer. For others, they may hold their hands outstretched. Still others hold hands.

None of these gestures is mandated or forbidden by the Church. So our guiding principles should be respect for the dignity of the Mass, and respect for the freedom of our fellow worshipers.

Some people feel that holding hands during the “Our Father” enhances a sense of community. This is perfectly appropriate — so long as it can be done with dignity and without the unseemly acrobatics that sometimes ensue.

For other people, holding hands is a kind of intimacy they reserve for family members. It makes them uncomfortable to hold hands during Mass, and they prefer not to do it. This is also perfectly appropriate. A parish may have several ways of praying the “Our Father,” depending on the people who take part in a specific Mass. No one should feel coerced, and the beauty of the liturgy should always be observed.

We have seen before that the Mass is rich with symbols and signs. The beauty and centrality of the Eucharist, which our Lord entrusted to the Church for all times and all peoples, should always be evident in every celebration of the Mass. Thus, those involved in liturgical education should take special care not to allow their private preferences to influence their work.

I have found his last sentence above to be very important, for those of all visions. As Master of Ceremonies for my diocese, I have had occasion to decide and implement things which would not have been my personal preference at all – but they were within what was allowable and, more importantly, were the will of the Bishop for the particular event. My personal preference was irrelevant

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Sometimes, when he was in a priory, our holy father Dominic would stand upright before the altar, not leaning on anything or supported by anything, but with his whole body standing erect on his feet. Sometimes he would hold his hands out, open, before his breast, like an open book, and then he would stand with great reverence and devotion, as if he were reading in the presence of God. At such times he seemed to be meditating, savoring the words of God in his mouth and, as it were, enjoying reciting them to himself. He had made his own the Lord’s practice which we read about in Luke 4:16, ‘Jesus went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as it was his custom to do, and stood up to read.’ And it says in Psalm 105:30, ‘Phineas stood and prayed and the pestilence stopped.’

At other times he joined his hands and held them tightly fastened together in front of his eyes, hunching himself up. At other times he raised his hands to his shoulders, in the manner of a priest saying Mass, as if he wanted to fix his ears more attentively on something that was being said to him by someone else. If you had seen his devotion as he stood there, erect in prayer, you would have thought you were looking at a prophet conversing with an angel or with God, now talking, now listening, now thinking quietly about what had been revealed to him.

When he was travelling, he would steal sudden moments of prayer, unobtrusively, and would stand with his whole mind instantaneously concentrated on heaven, and soon you would have heard him pronouncing, with the utmost enjoyment and relish, some lovely text from the very heart of sacred scripture, which he would seem to have drawn fresh from the Savior’s wells (Is. 12:3).

The brethren used to be greatly moved by this example, when they saw their father and master praying in this way, and the more devout among them found it the best possible instruction in how to pray continuously and reverently, ‘as the eyes of a handmaid are on the hands of her mistress and as the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters’ (Ps. 122:2).

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[BartholomewB]

It seems to be an American fixation. It is quite remarkable for those of us who live in the rest of the world.

A year or two ago a recurring topic on this forum was receiving on the tongue/in the hand and standing/kneeling. Could that be a similar manifestation of the same fixation? Everyone has to do it the same way. They can’t both be right! If one of them is right, the other one must be wrong …

 

[Thom18]

I’ve been using Oran’s posture my whole life. What other options do we have if we aren’t supposed to use it?

 

[Spyridon]

@FrDavid96

Father bless,

I think if we had trained monkeys in tuxedos dancing on the altar and ping pong ball fights, Mass attendance would skyrocket… thanks for the ideas!

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[exnihilo]

I don’t do this, but maybe 25% of my parish do. Maybe half of those that the lifting of hands at the our father. Things like this are one reason why I close my eyes during much of mass. It looks silly and lacking in reverence.

Along these lines, my bishop has specifically said the faithful must not make the sign of the cross when the general absolution is given. We are supposed to have unity of posture.

Gee, don’t we have more important things to worry about? Are you trying to say such a gesture is a sin? Mortal or venial?

A gesture certainly could be a sin. Some gestures are always rude. Some are inappropriate for a person at a certain time and place. If people started making the sign of the cross used for blessings given by clergy that would certainly be very inappropriate.

The sisters taught us that we were to bow our heads every time we said the name of Jesus. Everyone did so.

After Vat. II people stopped bowing their heads. It took me years to stop doing it and I still do it in private.

We should still do this. Bow at the name of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saint of the day. The priests and deacons should still be doing this during the liturgy.

 

[FrDavid96]

Simply put, it’s not all in the GIRM. Anyone taking the rather fundamentalist/naive view that everything is and that no variance can possibly be allowed is simply wrong.

On top of that the local ordinary (and not the GIRM) is the final word on liturgical matters in their (arch)dioceses, save obviously for graviora delicta or other grave liturgical abuses.

Here locally we have had more than one article of the GIRM formally suspended by the prelate. Either temporarily because we legitimately needed more time to get in compliance or because the prelate was involved in a political game at the USCCB level, or permanently because he felt an article was simply not usable (or could be met) in every parish in his (arch)diocese and he was going to allow defined options.

He has that authority like it or not and with it comes the responsibility for his pronouncements.

That’s the opposite of what the Catholic Church has to say on the matter.

All 3 paragraphs you get completely wrong.

Here how the Church sees things

1. 1. Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop.

1. In virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops legitimately established.

3 Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.

What you posted is the exact opposite of the Church’s teaching and position on this.

 

[FrDavid96]

It seems to be an American fixation. It is quite remarkable for those of us who live in the rest of the world.

We have a different perspective precisely because we have a different experience.

We are not all Europeans, remember.

What happens here is that the hand-holding and/or orans use has become a corporate gesture of the congregation. It has been taken so far that it is no longer the private, personal posture of individuals at Mass.

For that reason, the criteria of “how does the Church regulate individual posture?” is a question that simply does not apply. It is not individual posture; not here, not now. It was in the past, but it has moved far beyond that.

 

[Duesenberg]

Yet what I posted is the cold, hard, practical truth.

 

[FrDavid96]

Yet what I posted is the cold, hard, practical truth.

Not even close.

Read what the Catholic Church has to say. What you posted is the exact opposite.

SC 22

1. Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See and, as laws may determine, on the bishop.
2. In virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops legitimately established.
3. Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.

 

[Duesenberg]

It rests with the ordinaries, not your personal interpretation of the GIRM, SC, RS or any other document.

 

[BartholomewB]

What happens here is that the hand-holding and/or orans use has become a corporate gesture of the congregation. It has been taken so far that it is no longer the private, personal posture of individuals at Mass.

Yes, I have found that to be the case in my own very limited experience. (In recent years I have attended Mass regularly in only two different cities, in maybe three or four parishes in each of them.) There is now a clear division: in some parishes the entire congregation holds hands, the whole length of the row, for the Our Father, with similarly frequent use of the orans posture, while in other parishes neither of those customs is observed. For myself, I always go along with whichever is the locally accepted practice. It’s not my place to tell my fellow-worshipers they’re wrong. I am not the GIRM police.

 

[omgriley]

I read about this when it came out. I stopped doing it. Wife was furious with me about me until a State Senator ( parishioner at our church ) posted on facebook to a recently ordained Priest ( also from our Parish ).

A lot of people have read this article and no longer do this gesture at our Parish.

Do they do it at your Parish?

Church Militant - Serving Catholics

Church Militant tends to have a nasty slant…

Either way I don’t do it simply because the laity are not supposed to do it. While not explicitly forbade in the Rubrics and the GIRM, it is still frowned upon. The Book of Blessings says don’t do. The GIRM actually positively instructs the laity to pray differently than the priest.

I find it funny that there are people who bring in their own postures to the mass when they’re not instructed to. Yet those very same people abstain from doing the prayer postures they’re explicitly instructed to do. For example, the people who tend to pray with the Orans posture, or who hold hands during the Our Father, almost never do the profound bow whenever the Lord’s or Our Lady’s names are mentioned.

Some times it’s just a matter of cultural upbringing, but other times it’s just poor catechesis.

 

[omgriley]

It is irrelevant what individuals do (with regard to this topic).

However, we are so far beyond that in real-life experience.

This (either hand-holding or orans) phenomenon has taken on a life of its own. It has become a corporate gesture of the congregation; whether people will admit it or not.

This is not about “does it matter if Junior holds mom’s hand at some point in Mass?” It has devolved to the point where it has actually become a part of that part of the Mass. When the entire congregation is doing the same thing at the same time, it is no longer a matter of individuals.

Having hands folded is indeed a private gesture. It doesn’t get in the way of anyone else. It does not distract anyone else the way hand-waving does. It does not compel others to participate the way corporate hand-holding does.

The Church does not seek to regulate the posture of individuals at Mass rigidly.

We aren’t talking about individual gestures anymore. Those days are long past. It is a corporate gesture and it has become part of the Mass, albeit an illicit part.

This

I have to ask though, can we ever expect something to be done about it at a high level?

 

[JamalChristophr]

Seems to me, it’s more or less up to the Bishops if they want to send a message down to the laity to refrain from doing this fairly widespread posture.

Most likely, I would surmise that the Bishops have more pressing things to attend to in their office or for various reasons, they choose not to address the matter.

(just a voice from the choir loft )