Dominican Orans position at the Unde et Memores[/caption] Posted on 02/25/2015 12:21:11 AM PST by walkinginthedesert
The Orans Position and holding hands during the Our Father
[caption id="attachment_1144" align="alignnone" width="300"] Dominican Orans position at the Unde et Memores[/caption]
Most people who attend a Novus Ordo parish or who simply attend Mass in what is known as the Ordinary Form (which most people attend) encounter two specific types of hand gestures that many of the laity engage in. The first type of hand gesture is that which is known as the "Orans Position" (praying with elevated hands). This type of gesture can be seen in several parts of the Mass such as when one of the laity elevates their hands in response to "The Lord Be With You". This can also be seen by many during the recitation of the Our Father. The second type of hand gesture that most people encounter is namely the act of holding hands during the Our Father.
This article will address these two specific types of hand gestures and whether they belong at Mass. It will first help explain some of the history of the Orans position and why only the priest should pray in this position at Mass. The article will later explain why the act of holding hands during the Our Father does not belong at Mass and why it is actually not a Catholic concept.
A short history of the Orans Position
The orans position has been used as a gesture of pleading and supplication since ancient times. This is true in many pagan religions including Greco-Roman paganism. The Orans position was later present in Judaism as well and finally many Early Christians quickly identified the Orans position with the outstretched arms of Christ crucified. This can be seen for example in the Brescia Casket.
Colin B. Donovan helps explain the significance of the Orans position as a means of pleading and supplication. "Consider what we do when we plead with someone, we might put our arms out in front of us as if reaching for the person and say 'I beg you, help me'. This seems to be a natural human gesture coming deep within us."1
With this in mind we can see that the Orans position is not anything new, it is rather a particular prayer position that has existed since the Early Church and even before it. Catholics can thus based on this reality freely pray in this position during private prayer outside of Mass. We will now see why Catholic laity should not however use this position within the celebration of Holy Mass.
A course of disunity within the Mass
Many Catholics might not know that the use of the Orans position at Mass is solely to be used by the priest alone. The main reason is that the use of the Orans position during Mass is exclusively a priestly gesture. The Rubrics for the Mass only give the priest the sole authority of praying with elevated hands (Orans Position). Neither the deacon nor the Catholic laity are given this liturgical role since it is once again a priestly gesture.
The Main symbolism behind the orans position being a priestly gesture is based on the indication that "his praying on behalf of us, acting as alter Christus as pastor of the flock, head of the body"2 Similarly it symbolizes the fact that the priest is petitioning God in behalf of the people by uplifting our prayers towards God in Heaven.
Because the deacon and laity are not given the liturgical role of praying in the Orans position, and furthermore because it is solely a priestly gesture in the context of the Mass, Colin B. Donovan goes on to write about the liturgical disunity which occurs when the laity engage in the Orans Position:
while lay people are doing this (Orans position) the deacon, whose postures are governed by the rubrics, may not do it. So, we have the awkward disunity created by the priest making an appropriate liturgical gesture in accordance with the rubrics, the deacon not making the same gesture in accordance with the rubrics, some laity making the same gesture as the priest not in accordance with the rubrics, and other laity not making the gesture (for various reasons, including knowing it is not part of their liturgical role). In the end, the desire of the Church for liturgical unity is defeated.3
Two of the main reasons why many laity might use the Orans position during Mass without knowing they aren't supposed to is primarily because they see the priest doing it so they assume that they are supposed to do it as well. Thus they don't know that only the priest is supposed to elevate his hands since it is a priestly gesture. Poorly catechized laity who have never been taught otherwise would obviously not know this
Holding hands during the Our Father
The second type of hand gesture that many laity engage in as was pointed out in the beginning 
of this article is in the act of holding hands during the Our Father. As I pointed out the Orans position certainly has historical use by Catholics in the Early Church and throughout the history of the Church, making it an acceptable form of prayer by the laity outside of Mass (Private Prayer). The same however cannot be said about the act of holding hands for prayer; specifically during the Mass. Hand holding came from both the New Age Movement, and Protestantism (Most specifically Pentecostalism where the horizontal dimension of community is emphasized and thus we become our own salvation.
This is in contrast to the nature of Mass and even Catholicism at its core in which all our prayers are directed towards God. This is most definitely true at Mass in which we unite our prayers with Christ at Calvary.
No, we don’t become our own salvation. I’ve been to all kinds of churches, including quite a few Pentecostal ones, and have never heard that in any one of them. Naming a simple uplifting of hands and assuming that holding hands is some sort of rejection of salvation as coming from God, what’s next in the minutiae of ritualism?
The Novus Ordo liturgy and other changes inspired by Vatican II are demonic in origin.
I was in the Communion line at a very hoity-toity Latin Mass once when a guy in front of me reaches out his hand and whacks they kid in front of him because he didn't apppend himself to the far end of the kneeling line...
Idiotic and stupid. Stay away from me.
During the Sign of Peace as well.
Mass is supposed to be very reflective....looking inward at your sins, at your worship of the Lord....silent prayer....
I remember when I was a kid my mother would come back from communion and kneel with her hands over her face, saying silent prayers to herself...we all followed her example....
now, we're supposed to stand until everybody gets thru the communion line....where is the time for a personal prayer of thanksgiving and adoration?...its like we're not supposed to have a relationship with the Lord, and that its more important to be this big bland group.....
We all do that now at Latin Mass in Kennewick (after receiving Communion on the tongue) -- I can't imagine it being any other way. Had no idea any Catholic did anything differently.
You used the phrase "supposed to" I think twice in your comment. I don't recognize any "supposed to" subsequent to 1962 unless it's consistent with antecedents.
Both practices are symptomatic of the highly feminized Mass of the Novus Order Missal. Does anybody wonder at the shortage of priests?
Good grief, let’s stop bashing each other, we are into Holy Lent!
Except that the “Novus Ordo” implicitly prohibits them. Maybe the problem isn’t the Novus Ordo, but the poorly catechized people in the pews (and, often enough, the poorly trained man at the altar).
Without hopefully being accused of bashing, I would like to point out that the new rite was supposedly designed for (and to produce) mature Catholics who knew their faith. We all know the statistics of pre-VatII Catholicism, we are supposed to be in the "new springtime".
The new rituals were designed to produce more priests and religious along with a better educated laity, that has not proved to be the case. Yet we're still merely tweaking things as if that's all that's needed to end the frost of winter. A winter that for some reason or another coincided with the introduction of the reformed liturgy. I know correlation is not causation but the circumstantial evidence is pretty dire.
Outright lie.
IF the author wants to talk about Catholic rituals, and the way they should properly be performed that is all well and good. But he should not be running down other Christian forms of worship.
Pentecostals believe there is no salvation apart from the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Nothing we do can ever make us perfect enough to attain heaven. Only Jesus can give it to us.
Loving correction. And yet we sin sometimes in delivering it without thinking it through.
Nothing wrong with learning the why and why not of Mass - that’s how we learn to love even ever more about it and our relationship with Jesus.
Praised Be Jesus Christ!
Well, I used to think Mass was for me to recharge my batteries, so leave me alone....but it is for us to recharge OUR batteries as a community, a celebration of the Eucharist, so we must be loving and inclusive “Our Father” as opposed to “My Father” and the “we” parts of the Mass versus of course your own “I” creed promises.
That doesn’t mean of course we hold hands but focus on Christ, together beside one another.
Sucks to stand up dafter the Lamb of God and for you I seee after Communion....my bishop requested it...so I submit in obedience to His Church as Christ asked us....but I bow my head a moment as that wasn’t specified!!!! My bishop needs his due support.
Once again: hand gestures = tip of the iceberg
Which got me to thinking: Why isn't this being done today in the front of the seasonal missals found in every church? IMO, these people are holding hands during the Our Father, raiding them at the Doxology, and mimicking the orans Because they just don't know any better. (Sad to say, neither do a lot of priests, but that's another story.)
**Many Catholics might not know that the use of the Orans position at Mass is solely to be used by the priest alone. The main reason is that the use of the Orans position during Mass is exclusively a priestly gesture. The Rubrics for the Mass only give the priest the sole authority of praying with elevated hands (Orans Position). Neither the deacon nor the Catholic laity are given this liturgical role since it is once again a priestly gesture.**
Truth.
Good of you to put this up to remind (or school) people. Many parishioners do not receive this direction from their priests, so they just don’t know any better. At one of the daily Mass parishes we go to, some of the fifty of so people who regularly attend actually move out of their pews to gather with all the others to hold hands. Reminds me of a children’s game. Some people are even turned sideways (to the altar), etc.
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