What to do with hands?

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InTheWilderness

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It seems there is a never ending debate raging about specific things that the people do during mass, such as hand holding during the Our Father.

My question is, what SHOULD the lay people be doing with their hands during the various parts of mass? What is required, recommended, or allowed?

Who gets to determine these things? Does it all come from the Vatican, or the bishops conference, or the local bishop, or even the pastor?

I am not trying to start another flame war or trolling contest, but I am honestly wondering what is the best practice in these matters. It feels odd to just have your hands dangling at your sides, or to be gripping the pew in front like it was a handrail. On the other hand, using the position I was trained to use as an altar server would seem perhaps to be a bit too rigid for the laity. (Fr. was certainly very exacting about such matters when we were trained, but hat was about 12 years ago, and today they have clearly changed even what the servers do.)
 
InTheWilderness said:
It seems there is a never ending debate raging about specific things that the people do during mass, such as hand holding during the Our Father.

My question is, what SHOULD the lay people be doing with their hands during the various parts of mass? What is required, recommended, or allowed?

Who gets to determine these things? Does it all come from the Vatican, or the bishops conference, or the local bishop, or even the pastor?

I am not trying to start another flame war or trolling contest, but I am honestly wondering what is the best practice in these matters. It feels odd to just have your hands dangling at your sides, or to be gripping the pew in front like it was a handrail. On the other hand, using the position I was trained to use as an altar server would seem perhaps to be a bit too rigid for the laity. (Fr. was certainly very exacting about such matters when we were trained, but hat was about 12 years ago, and today they have clearly changed even what the servers do.)
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What position was that. If it was clasping our hands together in prayer—there is nothing rigid in do so.
 
Well, first of all we have to agree that There is no specified posture for the Our Father. However, the tradition of the Roman Rite, which the Church holds up as being a constant means of guidance, is for the people to hold their hands clasped in front of them as the altar servers do.

So because this is tradition, we must look farther as to the role of the laity.
Are we Priest?
Are we Deacon?
Are we a bit under the Deacon being that he is ordained and we are closer to an Altar Server?

There is a specific directive for a Priest to use the Orans but for the Deacon not to.
see this…
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...ocuments/rc_con_interdic_doc_15081997_en.html

ON CERTAIN QUESTIONS REGARDING THE COLLABORATION OF THE NON-ORDAINED FAITHFUL IN THE SACRED MINISTRY OF PRIEST.
Article 6 states the following:
"1. Liturgical actions must always clearly manifest the unity of the People of God as a structured communion.(89) Thus there exists a close link between the ordered exercise of liturgical action and the reflection in the liturgy of the Church’s structured nature.
"This happens when all participants, with faith and devotion, discharge those roles proper to them.
"2. To promote the proper identity (of various roles) in this area, those abuses which are contrary to the provisions of canon 907 are to be eradicated. In eucharistic celebrations deacons and non-ordained members of the faithful may not pronounce prayers — e.g. especially the eucharistic prayer, with its concluding doxology — or any other parts of the liturgy reserved to the celebrant priest. Neither may deacons or non-ordained members of the faithful use gestures or actions which are proper to the same priest celebrant. It is a grave abuse for any member of the non-ordained faithful to “quasi preside” at the Mass while leaving only that minimal participation to the priest which is necessary to secure validity.
"In the same way, the use of sacred vestments which are reserved to priests or deacons (stoles, chasubles or dalmatics) at liturgical ceremonies by non-ordained members of the faithful is clearly unlawful.
"Every effort must be made to avoid even the appearance of confusion which can spring from anomalous liturgical practices. As the sacred ministers are obliged to wear all of the prescribed liturgical vestments so too the non-ordained faithful may not assume that which is not proper to them.
“To avoid any confusion between sacramental liturgical acts presided over by a priest or deacon, and other acts which the non-ordained faithful may lead, it is always necessary to use clearly distinct ceremonials, especially for the latter.”

Unless you are ordained as a Priest, you are not given the directive to use the Orans.

Now your Diocese may have a different idea. Check with them. Your Bishop should lead your way.
 
InTheWilderness said:
What is required, recommended, or allowed?
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No hand positions are required or recommended. What is NOT allowed is to use positions reserved to the priest, like the orans position.

So that leaves us with a choice of: palms pressed together and thumbs crossed, fingers laced together, hands at the sides, resting on the pew in front or in one’s coat pockets. Or holding a small child. Or holding a missal or hymnal.

What these hand positions have in common is that they only involve the person doing them. No one else’s personal space is invaded, and no one is made uncomfortable.

The other option, of course, is holding hands. This is only acceptable if the person next to you is a willing participant. Because so many people are not willing participants, including myself, I do not recommend this. But I am not the voice of the Church. That voice, so far, has been silent.

My church is freezing cold, so my hands stay mostly in my coat pockets.

Betsy
 
Just don’t twiddle your thumbs, or play “Here’s the Church, Here’s the Steeple” during the Our Father. 😃

I clasp mine together- tightly. I look straight ahead, sometimes even closing my eyes, not so tightly. Our bishop and our head priest of liturgy for the diocese have spoken: Only priests use orans. Hand-holding is more divisive than inclusive. Some don’t desire to listen, hence my posture during that prayer.
 
baltobetsy said:
The other option, of course, is holding hands. This is only acceptable if the person next to you is a willing participant. Because so many people are not willing participants, including myself, I do not recommend this. But I am not the voice of the Church. That voice, so far, has been silent.

My church is freezing cold, so my hands stay mostly in my coat pockets.

Betsy
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Actually, you should even check with your diocese on that.
Check this out from the Diocese of St. Louis

Is holding hands during the Lord’s Prayer allowed or encouraged?
BCL Newsletter, October-November 1989
No. The community’s corporate act of receiving communion is the primary symbol of unity with Christ and the Church. The Sign of Peace immediately preceding the reception of Communion is a liturgical rite that should not be minimized or duplicated in any way. A separate but related issue is the situation of individuals who for personal reasons feel uncomfortable with the practice of holding hands. In this case those individuals feel increasingly excluded from the worshipping community. Sensitivity is needed to include all and draw all to the true symbol of unity.
 
“Check with your bishop.”
Except in the Diocese of Barney, where everything is freestyle as long as you don’t kneel:D .
 
OutinChgoburbs said:
Just don’t twiddle your thumbs, or play “Here’s the Church, Here’s the Steeple” during the Our Father. 😃

You know, there is no directive that says you can’t. 😉
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I clasp mine together- tightly. I look straight ahead, sometimes even closing my eyes, not so tightly. Our bishop and our head priest of liturgy for the diocese have spoken: Only priests use orans. Hand-holding is more divisive than inclusive. Some don’t desire to listen, hence my posture during that prayer.
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This is the season in our parish where we have MANY visitors, all much more into the “Community” aspect of the liturgy than us poor toe tags.
I do exactly the same thing. Close my eyes.

I do have to say, that at one time a family was standing behind us and in a large bravado, with great gusto, said the Our Father while doing the group orans.
My little one was four at the time and put her hands up to be just like them.
I leaned into her and said, “Don’t do that. You know better.”

I could feel the air of dropping hands behind me.
You know that Unity thing only goes when everyone is holding hands, not when everyone else is not.
 
Convert with a question:

The orans position… what is that? At our parish everyone either holds hands… sometimes even connecting across the aisles OR, people don’t hold hands but they hold their own hands palms up, sort of in front of them until we get to the end bit (for the kingdom, and the power…) and then they raise their hands up higher - not really above their heads, but sort of eye level.

Is that the no-no? Not that it makes it right, but seriously, that’s our entire huge parish. Could it be that our Bishop doesn’t mind, in which case it’s ok?
 
InTheWilderness said:
It My question is, what SHOULD the lay people be doing with their hands during the various parts of mass? What is required, recommended, or allowed?

Who gets to determine these things? Does it all come from the Vatican, or the bishops conference, or the local bishop, or even the pastor?
.)
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we should not be too hard on people because most average folks in the pews do what they have been instructed to do. In this diocese, apparently several priests instructed people to raise both hands in the air for the OF, and several other priests instructed people to hold hands. There are parishes where both of these practices are common. then the hand raisers find themselves being grabbed by the hand-holders if either ventures out to another parish, leading to mass confusion and sometimes nasty looks.

the postures for the congregation during Mass are in the rubrics, neither of these are mentioned, so they are not done. Why they were introduced, under whose authority I have no idea, but don’t blame the people in the pews. We are so used to changes, updates, corrections, amendments being introduced, cancelled, enforced, rescinded etc. every few years we just go with the flow. Somebody told me that is called “organic development of the liturgy” but I call it violation of the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” law.
 
carol_marie said:
Convert with a question:

The orans position… what is that? At our parish everyone either holds hands… sometimes even connecting across the aisles OR, people don’t hold hands but they hold their own hands palms up, sort of in front of them until we get to the end bit (for the kingdom, and the power…) and then they raise their hands up higher - not really above their heads, but sort of eye level.

Is that the no-no? Not that it makes it right, but seriously, that’s our entire huge parish. Could it be that our Bishop doesn’t mind, in which case it’s ok?
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You MUST check with your diocese.
What you are describing is the Orans. It is a priestly gesture and is not for the laity.
However, some Bishops are appealing the decision to leave this out of the latest GIRM. Therefore, it may be the standard in your Diocese. Some, such as Cleveland, are even encouraging the Orans to overcome handholding.

Check with them.
 
OK, so there is no document that even makes a suggestion? Perhaps some Vatican Cardinal has given some wise advise in the public domain? At least one of the bishops here in the US must have written something on this topic.

I was attempting to make clear that I didn’t really want to talk about what MAY NOT be done in this thread. That is quite well argued in many other threads, particularly regarding the Our Father.

I will say, on a personal note, I really don’t like the orans position. However, I actually see holding hands as an improvement over everyone using orans. Not that I am exactly thrilled by that idea either. It is what I have lived with for as long as I can remember though.

The reason I ask, is I have seen a great variety of gestures, postures, etc used during mass. Some of these seem good, others just seem odd. Some are apparently not correct based on what has been written here at CAF.

As to what we were trained to do as altar servers, we were trained to place our hands together with the palms and fingers all facing their opposite. (No interlocking of the fingers.) Then there was a particular way we were supposed to hold our arms, etc. It really was a bit rigid, but it seemed appropriate for servers. Now they usually have their hands such that their fingers are interwoven, and they are somewhat casual in general.
 
InTheWilderness said:
OK, so there is no document that even makes a suggestion? Perhaps some Vatican Cardinal has given some wise advise in the public domain? At least one of the bishops here in the US must have written something on this topic…
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As noted in my first post, Catholic traditions says to fold your hands.

Look at any picture from any Holy Mass before the 70’s.
People are holding missals, holding babies and folding hands.
No handholding (unless it’s one’s own child) no Orans.

Tradition is what we are about.
 
netmil(name removed by moderator) said:
As noted in my first post, Catholic traditions says to fold your hands.

Look at any picture from any Holy Mass before the 70’s.
People are holding missals, holding babies and folding hands.
No handholding (unless it’s one’s own child) no Orans.

Tradition is what we are about.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------👍
 
carol_marie said:
Convert with a question:

The orans position… what is that? At our parish everyone either holds hands… sometimes even connecting across the aisles OR, people don’t hold hands but **they hold their own hands palms up, sort of in front of them **until we get to the end bit (for the kingdom, and the power…) and then they raise their hands up higher - not really above their heads, but sort of eye level.

Is that the no-no? Not that it makes it right, but seriously, that’s our entire huge parish. Could it be that our Bishop doesn’t mind, in which case it’s ok?
Click to expand...
What I put in bold in your quote is the orans gesture (this is the gesture the priest uses during this prayer, and yes, it is a no-no, because only the priest is allowed to use this gesture. I’ve also come across many people doing this, but I am very happy to note that today I had a rare occasion to go to a Polish Mass at my parish (which tends to be more traditional than even English Mass in the same parish) and no one within my line of sight (which was fairly extensive today) was doing the orans except the priest - I was very happy to see that. 👍

Karolina
 
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