Question about gestures during mass

[Thomasbradley312]

I was just curious about certain gestures I see some people, but not all do during mass.
Some people make the sign of the cross over themselves following the penitential act when the priest makes the absolution. Is this something we are supposed to do?
Some people bow their heads at every mention of Christ or Mary’s name during mass. Some people also bow their heads following both the consecration of the bread and wine while the priest genuflects.
I was just curious if these practices are just peoples own customs or is this actually in the rubrics? I can’t seem to find that we are supposed too do this.

 

[Thomasbradley312]

The Nicene Creed? Yah I mean I am used to making the sign of the cross after absolution because i really only recently started going to the OF, this is why i ask. First couple times i actually genuflected during the creed because you do in the EF, then I slowly realized people weren’t but just bowing. These other gestures I speak about are just other things I’ve picked up on people doing during mass.

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

Some people make the sign of the cross over themselves following the penitential act when the priest makes the absolution. Is this something we are supposed to do?

This is a carryover from the EF but not prescribed in the OF (nor prohibited).

Some people bow their heads at every mention of Christ or Mary’s name during mass.

I believe this is called for / recommended, and it has been custom for ages predating the OF. See the GIRM # 275a

Some people also bow their heads following both the consecration of the bread and wine while the priest genuflects.

The GIRM prescribes a profound bow (full body, not just head) during the consecration when the priest genuflects if one isn’t kneeling, so I think people instinctively bow their heads while kneeling at this same point; plus, it’s a matter of reverence neither prescribed nor prohibited in this case. See # 43.

 

[PeterT]

I was just curious about certain gestures I see some people, but not all do during mass.
Some people make the sign of the cross over themselves following the penitential act when the priest makes the absolution. Is this something we are supposed to do?

It’s not required, but it’s indeed a praiseworthy practice for one to make the sign of the cross anytime one receives a blessing from God (during Mass or outside of Mass). And being absolved of one’s sins is indeed a great blessing from God.

(In other words, it’s a nice way to silently acknowledge and thank God for the blessing received)

 

[jimXroberts]

In my church, around half of the congregation make the sign of the cross at the absolution. I find it a little surprising that most of those have actually never experienced an EF Mass. Perhaps it’s something they learn at school.

In pre-Vatican II days, it was the normal practice for the MC to bow with the priest for the section of the Canon that starts: “Súpplices te rogámus, omnípotens Deus…” and to make the sign of the cross with him at “omni benedictióne cælésti et grátia repleámur”. When we have OF Mass in Latin with Eucharistic Prayer I, I have to make an effort not to do so.

 

[CRV]

Some people make the sign of the cross over themselves following the penitential act when the priest makes the absolution.

As someone else said, I think this has carried over from the EF.
[Though I think in the OF in some places (I think) it is written in red that all strike their breast ‘through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault’ in the penitential act.]

Some people bow their heads at every mention of Christ or Mary’s name during mass.

Bowing at Holy Names - December 01, 2015 15:35 Fr. Edward McNamara Liturgy Q-and-A

Some people also bow their heads following both the consecration of the bread and wine while the priest genuflects.

I believe this was covered in another thread on here just recently. Bow head when Eucharist is held up.

I can’t seem to find that we are supposed too do this.

Whilst this isn’t the rubrics, it may be of assistance to you - Gestures and Postures - 2010

ETA - Chapter 2 The Structure of the Mass, Its’ Elements and Its’ Parts, Gestures and Postures #42-43 inclusive.

 

[DIERM]

Not a hill worth dying on.

I do, based on St. Paul’s writing that “every knee will bow” (Phil 2:10-11, Romans 14:11) bow deeply during the creed and Gloria when the name of Jesus is said.

If I’m wrong, I don’t want to be right. If it offends you, get over it. If I worry whether the sensitivities of others will out weight the judgement of Christ for such offenses, I will take my chances, because He has more tolerance than legalists, and always has…from the Pharisees to the new day liturgical purists.

 

[Thomasbradley312]

Why what’s wrong with the TLM?

 

[Dovekin]

And what is wrong with Maronite custom?

 

[Mintaka]

Unlike priests and clergy (or those standing in for clergy, like servers), laypeople have a huge amount of freedom as regards to rubrics, in all Rites. You have a lot more liturgical freedom from your pope or your bishop, as a layperson, than you have from your mom and dad sitting next to you and providing liturgical instructions.

But specifically in the OF, there’s a lot that the liturgical books assume is being done according to the EF, whether or not it specifically says so. Anytime there’s a dubia question asked about such things, the answer from the Vatican was “Duh, just keep doing what priests did in the EF.”

So of course there’s nothing wrong about laypeople doing EF things at an OF Mass, as long as they don’t headbutt anyone in the process.

And if laypeople from other Rites are visiting an OF Mass, and they do things their way, it’s nothing scandalous.

Look, I’ve been to a synagogue with fifty laypeople, where maybe thirty were all performing different liturgical gestures and doing different prayer positions, because their ancestors came from different little Eastern European villages with different Jewish traditions, and none of them wanted their ancestral practices to die out without remembrance. Nothing bad happened. There was no disunity of worship, because there was commonality of spirit.

The same thing used to be broadly true in most Catholic countries at Mass, just as it is broadly true in most Eastern Catholic traditions. Laypeople are supposed to be allowed to do their thing their way. There was none of this lining up or strict silence in churches full of laypeople; that was for the clergy and religious orders.

Just like theaters got turned into places of silence and darkness in Victorian times (and mostly just because Wagner wanted it), so uniformity of Mass posture is a product of Victorian times and Victorian school nuns. They just wanted to be sure that the kids weren’t up to mischief; but that aesthetic caught on. It even goes so far as to make people line up in the pews and file out to receive Communion in neat little lines, rather than going to receive only if one feels ready, and thus tending to seat oneself in convenient pews.

(Yes, kids, there’s probably a reason why we Catholics instinctively head for the back pews, and let the front pews fill up with whoever wants them. Because obviously not everybody was going to be in a state of grace to receive Communion, and those people tended to sit in the back.)

Now, I like peace and quiet at church. I even like uniformity of gesture. But it’s not a historic norm for laypeople; it’s not the liturgical law for laypeople. It’s silly to let an unofficial aesthetic become some kind of iron hand, strangling individual and traditional forms of devotion. Especially when those devotions are totally legal and/or historically normal.

 

[Thomasbradley312]

Yah. That’s nice and all except by not having these in the rubrics they obviously don’t take it seriously, just answering “yah just keep doing it like in the EF”. If the Vatican had it’s way in a perfect post conciliar world there would be no EF and the practices associated with it would have drifted away with those who didn’t know it.

 

[JohnLilburne]

The first post had: “Some people make the sign of the cross over themselves following the penitential act when the priest makes the absolution. Is this something we are supposed to do?”

No. In the Roman Missal’s “The Order of Mass” it has in n. 1:

“When the Entrance Chant is concluded, the Priest and the faithful, standing, sign themselves with the Sign of the Cross,”.

There is no similar rubric for the absolution.

The first post had: “Some people bow their heads at every mention of Christ or Mary’s name during mass.” All should do this. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) has in 275(a):

“A bow of the head is made when the three Divine Persons are named together and at the name of Jesus, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of the Saint in whose honour Mass is being celebrated.”

The first post had: “Some people also bow their heads following both the consecration of the bread and wine while the priest genuflects.”

GIRM 43 has: “They should kneel, on the other hand, at the Consecration, except when prevented on occasion by ill health, or for reasons of lack of space, of the large number of people present, or for another reasonable cause. However, those who do not kneel ought to make a profound bow when the Priest genuflects after the Consecration.”

A “profound bow” is different to a bow of the head. This is explained in GIRM 275. It is a bow of the body, not just a bow of the head. GIRM 275(b) begins: “A bow of the body, that is to say, a profound bow, is made to the altar;”.

[Excerpts from the English translation of The Roman Missal, © 2010 International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. All rights reserved.]