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Guest
“The difference between a liturgist and a terrorist is that you can negotiate with a terrorist.”
-Source unknown
Part of discussion strikes me as a legalistic reduction of worship to rubrics. According to this document from 2003:
"*It is true that there is no prescribed posture for the hands during the Our Father and that, so far at least, neither the Holy See nor the U.S. bishops’ conference has officially addressed it…
The act of holding hands usually emphasizes group or personal unity from the human or physical point of view and is thus more typical of the spontaneity of small groups. Hence it does not always transfer well into the context of larger gatherings where some people feel uncomfortable and a bit imposed upon when doing so.
The use of this practice during the Our Father could detract and distract from the prayer’s God-directed sense of adoration and petition, as explained in Nos. 2777-2865 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in favor of a more horizontal and merely human meaning.
For all of these reasons, no one should have any qualms about not participating in this gesture if disinclined to do so. They will be simply following the universal customs of the Church, and should not be accused of being a cause of disharmony.*"
If someone doesn’t want to hold hands, that’s fine. However, the Our Father is a corporate prayer, even in its title/opening words, in addition to the use of the first-person plural throughout. Its placement within the Liturgy of the Eucharist in close proximity the distribution of the Blessed Sacrament also underscores the corporate nature of the worship. In addition to the original Greek containing an appeal to God for our “trans-substantial” (not “daily”, from the Greek epiousios) bread, it underscores that we are consuming the body and blood of Christ together. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11, the common sharing of the sacramental meal is critical, and the insertion of the Our Father into the anaphora from ancient times underscores it as a matter beyond individual prayer. The use of hand-holding is, in addition to reciting it in unison, an organic expression of how our culture demonstrates amity and affection. In that Christ himself redefined family around the Church (i.e., Mark 3:33-35; the common use of “brothers” throughout the New Testament), this makes total sense to me.
If someone prefers not to hold hands, that’s fine. If someone wants to take the orans posture, that’s fine. If someone wants to hold hands, that’s fine. People genuinely bringing their hearts to Jesus Christ can do so in whatever manner is not forbidden by the Magisterium, and I’ve been in charismatic parishes where raising hands up in the air and swaying is not an uncommon feature. The center of our faith is the experience we have with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. How that happens is not, and IMHO should not, be defined according to one person or group’s approach to worship.
-Source unknown
Part of discussion strikes me as a legalistic reduction of worship to rubrics. According to this document from 2003:
"*It is true that there is no prescribed posture for the hands during the Our Father and that, so far at least, neither the Holy See nor the U.S. bishops’ conference has officially addressed it…
The act of holding hands usually emphasizes group or personal unity from the human or physical point of view and is thus more typical of the spontaneity of small groups. Hence it does not always transfer well into the context of larger gatherings where some people feel uncomfortable and a bit imposed upon when doing so.
The use of this practice during the Our Father could detract and distract from the prayer’s God-directed sense of adoration and petition, as explained in Nos. 2777-2865 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in favor of a more horizontal and merely human meaning.
For all of these reasons, no one should have any qualms about not participating in this gesture if disinclined to do so. They will be simply following the universal customs of the Church, and should not be accused of being a cause of disharmony.*"
If someone doesn’t want to hold hands, that’s fine. However, the Our Father is a corporate prayer, even in its title/opening words, in addition to the use of the first-person plural throughout. Its placement within the Liturgy of the Eucharist in close proximity the distribution of the Blessed Sacrament also underscores the corporate nature of the worship. In addition to the original Greek containing an appeal to God for our “trans-substantial” (not “daily”, from the Greek epiousios) bread, it underscores that we are consuming the body and blood of Christ together. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11, the common sharing of the sacramental meal is critical, and the insertion of the Our Father into the anaphora from ancient times underscores it as a matter beyond individual prayer. The use of hand-holding is, in addition to reciting it in unison, an organic expression of how our culture demonstrates amity and affection. In that Christ himself redefined family around the Church (i.e., Mark 3:33-35; the common use of “brothers” throughout the New Testament), this makes total sense to me.
If someone prefers not to hold hands, that’s fine. If someone wants to take the orans posture, that’s fine. If someone wants to hold hands, that’s fine. People genuinely bringing their hearts to Jesus Christ can do so in whatever manner is not forbidden by the Magisterium, and I’ve been in charismatic parishes where raising hands up in the air and swaying is not an uncommon feature. The center of our faith is the experience we have with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. How that happens is not, and IMHO should not, be defined according to one person or group’s approach to worship.
