Can someone please explain to me this tradition in ordinations in which the concelebrating priests who impose their hands on the newly ordained leave one hand raised afterwards as the rest of the take priests take their turn to lay hands?
Thanks.
The matter and form of the sacrament of Order is respectively the laying on of hands and the prayer of consecration by the ordaining bishop. Between the ordaining bishop’s laying on of his hands and the moment he recites the prayer of consecration, all priests present (not just those who are concelebrating the Mass of ordination) come forward and impose their hands on the head of the
ordinand(i)
It is a gesture of unity with the bishop who is ordaining because presbyters are ordained as co-workers with the bishop and constitute a stable college with and under him. It is a gesture of unity with the one who is, by ordination, is becoming a priest and by that fact part of the presbyterate.
As we come forward and impose our own hands, we then silently keep one hand extended throughout the bishop saying or singing the prayer of consecration that constitutes the form of the sacrament. We are joined with him in his action even though, of course, it is he who is actually conferring the sacrament.
The gestures are expressing several realities, not least the reality of the ontological character of the priesthood that marks those of us who have been ordained to the presbyteral order…an ontological character that unites us to each other and that we share. This unity finds its most perfect expression at the moment in which we, together, confect the Eucharist as we concelebrate the Mass…but, of course, the ontological character we share is always present.
We repeat this gesture also during the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday morning. Just as only the bishop can ordain, only the bishop can consecrate the sacred chrism but the priests present extend their hand as he consecrates it as a gesture also of unity with the bishop’s action in that moment and that we are one with him in the exercise of the sacred ministry which we have received from the hand of a successor to the apostles and that we always exercise with and under a successor to the apostles… Of course, the bishop in his turn was selected from among the priests to be elevated to the fullness of the priesthood, which is the episcopate.
Both of these occasions, ordination to the priesthood and the Chrism Mass, express two high points of the liturgical life of the particular Church that is a diocese: the Eucharist presided by the bishop of the diocese, surrounded by the college of presbyters, assisted by the deacons who are exercising their proper order and ministry, and with at least a representation of the people of God from every parish of the diocese.
