Posted on 06/13/2002 9:14:00 PM PDT by lanceboyle
This is just a concern of a cradle Catholic. I've never been abused, God bless the priests who were in our parish while I was growing up. I accepted without question the changes that took place in our church, but as a child in the seventies, the iconoclasm, the felt banners, and guitar Masses didn't make much of a difference to me. But recently, this whole thing of hand-holding during the Our Father has been rather disturbing. I'm just not the touchy-feely type, and it's getting even wierder. There have even been people making Shirley Maclaine type gestures during Mass. Call me a dinosaur, but even the hymns don't have the same punch anymore. We used to sing great songs like "Holy God We Praise Thy Name." Now the music is banal at best, probably written by a member of the lavender mafia. Unless you go to a Hispanic parish, where you're treated to Mariachi music (with which I personally have no problem, but does it belong in Mass?) Am I just getting old, or do we need to bring the Church back to the Traditional Mass. Besides, the hand-holding is just plain gay.
If you had no idea who Jesus was after going to church for 19 years, then all I can say is that you must have been mighty wilfully inattentive all that time. If you were so inattentive as to not listen to the Gospel being proclaimed nor acknowledge the offering of the Eucharist, then obviously you have no knowledge of the Catholic Church and are in no position to judge her. Furthermore, I don't believe an "altar call" is required by the Bible.
Not that I know of. Then again is there some command to hold hands that I am not aware of?
Oh just don't hold hands if you really don't want to. It is NOT charitable for others to impose handholding on you if you don't like it. I believe the vast majority of the handholders don't feel slighted by the non-handholders.
So am I, but there are lots of folks in my parish who don't hold hands and nobody looks askance at them.
Those who don't like to hold hands,and don't like anyone else to hold hands, should CHILL.
Speaking as a Protestant, I feel that some services and apparently some Masses are making such a determined effort to be touchy-feely and informal that the majesty and power of worship are lost. It is disheartening to sit through a service that has the inspirational aura of a Chamber of Commerce meeting.
And I also want to point out that informality trickles into everything...including a couple who carried COFFEE into the sanctuary for worship! My husband asked the pastor to remind people that this was inappropriate (which he was loathe to do since it sounded unfriendly) and said if it wasn't stopped they would soon be carrying doughnuts in as well.
Well, I am done grumbling for the evening. LOL!
The evidence that shows that holding hands during the Our Father, or any part of Holy Mass, is ILLICIT, is found in the journal Notitiae, Rome's official interpretation of the GIRM. Holding hands was addressed in 1975.
QUERY: In some places there is a current practice whereby those taking part in the Mass replace the giving of the sign of peace at the deacon's invitation by holding hands during the singing of the Lord's Prayer. Is this acceptable?
REPLY: The prolonged holding of hands is of itself a sign of communion rather than of peace. Further, it is a liturgical gesture introduced spontaneously but on personal initiative; it is not in the rubrics. Nor is there any clear explanation of why the sign of peace at the invitation: "Let us offer each other the sign of peace" should be supplanted in order to bring a different gesture with less meaning into another part of the Mass: the sign of peace is filled with meaning, graciousness, and Christian inspiration. Any substitution for it must be repudiated.
Sorry, Buddy, there always has been. Don't you remember the readings: the Gospels telling about Jesus' life, the letters of St. Paul -- usually the second reading -- instructing the communities that he was going out to in the beliefs of Christ, and the first reading, usually from the Old Testament, many of them prophecies about the coming of Jesus Christ????????
Good term. That's exactly what it is. I don't like it and I'm glad to see others don't either. I thought I was alone in this. I am a touchy-feely type but only with certain people. As for my hands, I simply do not like people holding my hands. Strange I know, but it's like a control or a power thing. It bothers me. Anyway, as to the Mass, it just seems the more 'other centered' it becomes, the less 'Christ centered' it is.
This is a gesture of opening oneself up to receiving the word of God during the Our Father.
The church was concentrating on community building, hence the holding of hands to indicate 'one community'.
New leanings are to the outstretched hands in open reception of God the Father during the Our Father; it is going back to being a very individual thing, but also does have that community and openness aspect with the outstretched hands.
Right. Same in my parish. Whatever. But why are they doing it? I think the story is that the charismatics started it. But is a liturical abuse (perhaps of the less serious sort but still it is an abuse.) Sorta unfair they get to start something new and I don't get to start something new. When does my turn come to make up something that does not belong in a mass and just start doing it? Suppose the Latin Mass people just starting going to New Mass and start saying all the responses in Latin because they are "moved by the spirit". That's the larger issue.
I kind of lean toward saying the words of the consecration with the priest. What do you think? If I start it will it catch on?
Sadly, I think it already has caught on some places, along with all other kinds of abuses.
Since Lance through out his question on hand holding, and congregants mimicking the Priest's gestures, I'll throw out mine:
Has anyone been to Mass where folks stand for the Consecration?
I was visiting a Church and the Priest actually stopped saying the Mass, and said out loud to me, "You don't have to kneel for the Consecration."
To which I replied, "Oh, I can lay prostrate, if you prefer."
He put up his hands, and shook his head back and forth, and said, "No, no, that's all right."
Not to be accepted. These are holy words to be spoken only by the priest saying the Mass or those co-officiating with him, while the chalice and consecrated host are elevated. Kneeling at this time should continue through the "Great Amen" in reverence to the Blessed Sacrament. People should stand only after the "Great Amen" is finished.
Yes, I was stunned. I knelt, but that is just me.
Really. They could have leprosy.
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