Orans posture prohibited during Lord's Prayer

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Intent matters on a moral action. Yes, if someone is intending to imitate the priest, that is wrong. But no one is. So that’s why I said intent doesn’t matter in this case. Just follow the rubrics as you understand them.
 
That first opinion by Izolt was used in the original post.

In my parish pretty much everyone holds hands. This last year, I have taken to standing forward from the rest of the choir, easy to do, as I stand up from a piano bench, and holding my hands down. I started this as I noticed some doing the same, and I thought it good to show some an example that it is okay not to hold hands.
c1949 said:
We could crawl on our hands and knees to communion . If we apply a standard that something is not proscribed by the rubrics then it could lead to chaos.
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This is going on across the country. There has been no chaos or anyone taking this as license for any of this nutty stuff. So I would thing that is a lot of evidence that this is going to happen.
 
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Those who want to, hold hands in our church …but it’s totally not expected.
If someone extends their hand you can shake your head no. Period.
I don’t do it sometimes when I can tell people are sick next to me. And then I always bring hand sanitizer…
Because you never know…
 
That is the way it is at our parish. Maybe half the people hold hands. Occasionally someone next to me holds out their hand, and a slight nod is all it takes, no one acts as if I am being rude.

But it’s not the case everywhere. I know a lady who actually gets up and goes to the back of church and stands alone during the Our Father because she has such a problem with sweaty palms.
 
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Ah I see, well I don’t mind when people hold hands. I just find it feels weird when I do it, so I don’t. If I was commanded to so by my spiritual advisor I’d do it without thinking much more about it.

I don’t see the need to attack people who do licit things. If people do the orans, that’s perfectly valid, if they don’t that’s perfectly valid. I haven’t even bothered checking up on what state holding hands is, though I assume its licit too.

I think @JimR-OCDS is just being cheeky, especially because of the enormous heat and friction occuring during discussions about utterly trivial matters like this.

But I will let him speak for himself.
 
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Uh-ohhh…I’m one of the ones who may stay in the pew during communion, not because of serious sin or scrupulosity, but because I’m a sacristan and sometimes attend 3 Masses in a 24-hour period due to funerals, First Saturdays, holy days, etc. and know I can only take Holy Communion twice. Promise me you won’t raise an eyebrow as you walk past my pew, CajunJoy! 😅
 
So you just joined today, and for your first post, you chose to post something that’s been posted and discusssed on this forum countless times, and beaten to death each time? Just use that little magnifying glass on the upper right, and type in the word Orans and see what comes up.__ Arguments frequently arise with the topic, too.
 
“But it’s not the case everywhere. I know a lady who actually gets up and goes to the back of church and stands alone during the Our Father because she has such a problem with sweaty palms.”
Bless her heart… no one is forcing that on her. So she should probably not drink out of the communion cup either? Sometimes I don’t. Especially during flu season.
🤣
 
I did not say that it was up to the priest. You beg the question here, since my bishop is open to allowing the priest to decide such thing, and he is in charge of the liturgy, and what exactly is the “norm of law” is the actual question. The closest I heard the Holy See speak is when Cardinal Arinze spoke on the topic about not treating people at Mass like soldiers and regimenting them, and he was speaking informally.

I am sure if the Holy See addresses this (I bet if it is, there will be a lot surprise here), everyone will be obedient.
 
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Jurisdiction to correct the faithful does normally belong to the clergy and not everyone in the church, though, true?

Would we be worse off if we submitted to allowing the pastor to make corrections concerning matters which are not grave and about which the pastor is obviously aware?
 
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I said it is not an abuse unless the priest is proscribing it as a gesture. If the Priest says, “Everyone hold hands,” or “Raise your hands,” he is adding to the GIRM, then it is an abuse. The Church, The Holy See, has not declared what is happening now (some raising hands, some holding hands) an abuse.
 
Yes, sorry, though I could have sworn C. Arinze used proscribe. Maybe it was his dialect.
 
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You’re not implying that the current chief liturgist of the Universal Church wants the faithful to badger their pastor or their bishop about it because the guy in the pew next to him is holding somebody’s hand or praying with his palms facing up during the Our Father?

I’d say Pope Francis is more in the “minding your own business is a profitable spiritual practice” camp.

The exact posture is not proscribed, such that we would clearly have a matter of Do This and Therefore Do Not Do That. It just isn’t. Even if it were, I would argue that the laity, like the clergy, ought to use their canonical RIGHTS with prudence.

That’s just my take. I’ve made my point, you have your right to complain when you see fit, so that’s that.
 
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I did not use the word ridiculous to describe making a report to one’s bishop about a serious concern with the orientation of the hands of another member of the faithful while at Mass.

Just out of curiosity: Which faculty member(s) at Roman canon law universities are encouraging the faithful to report instances of the orans position or hand-holding by other members of the faithful to their bishops? Is this a thing I haven’t heard about?
 
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You are not alone. The author of the OP article has the same opinion. I do not know how many believe what. In my own experience, one of the two postures seem to predominate about 80% of the Churches I attend. Perhaps one day we will get a directive from the Holy See. Until then, I will consider these discussions indicative of how well and uniform that Mass is being offered for such a mundane issue to be worth discussing.
 
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