Our Father posture

[exnihilo]

I think because as @TheLittleLady pointed out some people really want to do it one way and others another way. So you have a battle going on. The people who don’t like it may be as passionate about it as the people who insist they can and should do it.

 

[pnewton]

pnewton:

It is a non-issue.

Thems is fightin’ words!

It is a non-issue for my parish. When I have visited elsewhere, I have never seen any problems arise from the Our Father posture. If some one reaches for me, I take their hand. If they raise their hand, then mine will go up as well. I am not going to arm-wrestle. I have a passionate apathy about it.

Some people enjoy fighting too much. No soul has been won to Christ over this issue.

 

[BartholomewB]

Article 6.2 from here http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...ocuments/rc_con_interdic_doc_15081997_en.html

This is an “instruction” which carries the full force of law.

@FrDavid96, I have no doubt at all that you’re absolutely correct. However, my wife and I currently attend Mass at a retreat center – it’s the closest to where we live in the countryside – and the practice there, with every encouragement from the pastor, is for the whole congregation to join hands, the whole length of every row, for the Our Father. I would see it as churlish to refuse to join in. I’m not the Posture Police.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

The recovery of the orans gesture as a prayer posture for everyone has been a great gift in the time of the liturgical renewal.

 

[hope]

Fr. David has stated that it shouldn’t be done during mass. He provided citations. Could you also cite documents that this is part of a renewal?

 

[lilypadrees]

We join hands at my parish. When I go to Mass at the hospital, we don’t.

 

[JetteZ]

Most of the laity I’ve noticed have their arms with their elbows close to their sides and the palms facing upwards–think petitioning.

This is how we, and about half of the other parishioners, pray the Our Father. It’s done along family units.

We started doing so when we had children. First, it felt like a way to pray with them. Second, one of us would likely be holding a baby and couldn’t do “prayer hands”; but, could hold hands with each other. I never realized it was an issue.

 

[MD1]

Yes, some do, maybe because they think they are supposed to.

 

[Dlee]

I’m relatively new and still watching to see what others do. So yes. I have held hands with a friend I sit by. If she isn’t there, I don’t. I try to keep my hands folded in prayer throughout Mass.

 

[JamalChristophr]

For some reason, this scene just came to me…

You know where the disciples were following behind Jesus on his way up to Jerusalem and Jesus turns around to them all and says,

“What were you arguing about?”

 

[Joe_5859]

People get upset over a lot of things. I think it’s kind of sad that something like praying the Our Father has become a point of contention between people.

I have had someone grab my hands during the Our Father once (I had my head bowed, eyes closed, and hands clasped together in front of me). That was the only time.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I extend one hand from my side during the Lord’s Prayer. The other hand, I’m holding my wife’s hand.

If the person next to her reaches to hold her hand, she holds their hand.

According to the tone of some in this thread, God hates us for doing this.

Jim

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I extend one hand from my side during the Lord’s Prayer. The other hand, I’m holding my wife’s hand.

If the person next to her reaches to hold her hand, she holds their hand.

According to the tone of some in this thread, God hates us for doing this.

You would be right at home in Italy.

 

[TK421]

90+% of the people in any parish I’ve been in will extend their hands in some fashion during the Our Father.

I used to think this wasn’t appropriate (as a result of influence on CAF when I was a first year newbie Catholic) until a clergyman explained it to me.

But yeah, there is a strain of OCD orthopraxy.

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

That’s an interesting image. The statue on the right looks like it is one of those Star Trek transporters.

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

I extend one hand from my side during the Lord’s Prayer. The other hand, I’m holding my wife’s hand.

If the person next to her reaches to hold her hand, she holds their hand.

According to the tone of some in this thread, God hates us for doing this.

Jim

Nice. I think you may be the only who thinks this.

 

[pianistclare]

Interesting thread, and glad for the references.
Today we received a memo from the Archbishop reminding people that during this terrible flu season contagious and severely ill people are dispensed from their Sunday obligation. We will also suspend any hand-holding, handshaking, and distribution of the cup, as our local hospital has no more beds available. Apparently, the Flu has hit our area hard. I’ve been asked to draft something for the BUlletin and the pulpit annoucements.

 

[pianistclare]

ew. no bueno.

 

[hope]

The Presider is to pray at times with hands joined and at times with hands extended. Both prayer postures are not thereby reserved to him.

I don’t understand. Why is it not reserved to him just because he joins his hands sometime and sometimes extended? According to Fr. David:

The orans posture is the posture that belongs only to the celebrant. It’s used a small number of times at Mass, and the Our Father is one of those time.

Is he wrong?

Gestures that are exclusive to him and any concelebrant would include, for example, the epicletic gesture before the consecration and the demonstrative gesture of concelebrants at each consecration.

I have never heard the term epicletic. Tried to look it up but I didn’t understand it. Would you explain it a bit more?

A parish I attend was encouraged to use the orans position and told to stop holding hands. What I have always wondered is that the Our Father takes place just before the sign of peace. The congregation hold hands and then exchanges the sign of peace which seems odd to me. I have asked many times without answer exactly why do we have the sign of peace. At one time there was talk about moving it to the beginning of Mass. I wish they would do that. Is there someone who can explain what the sign of peace is for?

 

[babochka]

This controversy, which seems to be an issue in America that the rest of us in the world do not have, always reminds me of when the Cardinal Prefect for the CDW had to correct the Americans for their overzealousness regarding rubrics that apply to laity.

I think many people here would be confused and upset to visit many of Eastern Catholic and Orthodox parishes, where the “rules” (customs) are not at all rigid, largely unwritten, and influenced a great deal by both local (parish) culture and national identity.

I think this attitude is very much a reaction to past decades in which the faithful were told that they were no longer allowed the piety of kneeling at Eucharistic prayer. In spite of very clear liturgical law to the contrary, they were, in many parishes, compelled to stand when they were compelled, both by their own sense of reverence and the desire to do what the church requires, to kneel. This was detrimental to the spirituality of many, just as was being denied the opportunity to receive Holy Communion kneeling. It comes as a result of past abuse and comes from those who deeply desire to do what the church desires.

This has happened in our Eastern parishes as treasured practices are set aside in favor of practices authentic to our own traditions. It has been a painful process for some.