The Self-Perpetuation of Innovations

The other day as I was at daily Mass at a parish other than my own, when the time for the Our Father came, I found that despite standing with my hands folded and my eyes closed, an elderly gentleman from the next pew had actually walked over and thrust his hand out towards mine to hold it. This always puts me in a predicament since he seemed so insistent on holding my hand (I have actually had people tap me on the shoulder while I am praying the Our Father with my eyes closed and hands folded in order to call my attention to the fact that their hand is extended) - because I am a softy, I ended up taking his hand, thinking it better not to offend against charity. Perhaps I am wrong about this, but it is a prudential judgment and at any rate not the point of this post.

But as I was leaving Mass, I contemplated the phenomenon of holding hands at the Our Father and the way the innovations tend to spawn other innovations. As I thought about it, I began to see that the holding of the hands at the Our Father is not simply a novelty/abuse, but it is actually five novelties. Five you ask? Yes, five. Here's how.

The origin of holding hands at the Our Father is undoubtedly connected with the laity adopting the orans gesture during the prayer. Once everybody takes the orans position, it is natural that hands will touch in a crowded pew, and then it is inevitable that people will think to start holding hands. So why do the laity adopt the orans posture?

Here is innovation number one. Dr. Ed Peters points out that originally the priest only adopted the orans gesture when praying out loud and alone (as in the Opening Prayer and the Post-Communion). However, when praying out loud and with the people (in the Gloria or Creed), he joins his hands together. The Our Father, being said in the Novus Ordo out loud and with the people, ought to be said by the priest with folded hands, but is in fact an anomaly.

This is because originally, the Pater Noster would have been prayed out loud and alone, as the other prayers that call for the orans in which the priest is praying on behalf of the people. But in 1958 permission was granted for, among other things, the congregation to join the priest in praying the Pater, provided that they could pray it in Latin (See AAS 50: 643; Eng. trans., Canon Law Digest V: 587). It was not mandated, but it quickly caught on. Thus we had the priest continuing to say the Pater Noster in the traditional orans gesture, but now the laity were allowed to say it as well. This was never addressed, and the rubric calling for or the priest to continue using the orans position during the Our Father simply passed unnoticed into the new rite of Mass. This is the first innovation: having the laity join the priest in saying the Our Father.

Number two comes when the laity decide to adopt the orans gesture. This came when the orans gesture became associated not with the manner in which prayer was offered, but with the Our Father prayer specifically. It was not unpredictable that this would happen once the Our Father became the only prayer said aloud and with the congregation in which the priest adopted the orans position. The laity would naturally associate this position with this specific prayer. This led them to belief the proper position for praying the Pater was the orans and to consequently adopt it. Now we have two innovations.

As I mentioned above, it is not a far cry from the laity adopting the orans to the point where they begin to hold hands. The Our Father does speak about us forgiving others and calling on our common Father, and so I think that what began as the simple postural reality that peoples' hands probably touched as they all adopted the orans quickly was mutated into an unsanctioned position of hand holding. For those who had already chosen to associate the orans with the Pater, this would seem to be in keeping with the spirit of the prayer. Thus we have the introduction of the third innovation: holding hands.

But it does not end there. Anyone who has been to a place where people hold hands during the Our Father knows that at the "For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory" everybody tends to elevate their raised hands. I am not sure how this began, but we can clearly pinpoint the raising of joined hands during this part as a distinct element from the simple hand holding. Thus the "Pater Noster Elevation" is innovation number four.

Finally, we have something which is not perceptible externally but is noticeable if you have ever held hands during the Our Father. After the prayer is over, when the priest and people say 'Amen' after the "sed libera nos a malo", the person holding your hand tends to give it a little squeeze, as if this 'Amen' is the climax of the affectionate rite of hand holding. It's like they are saying, "Hang in there, brother!" I think this is just a natural outgrowth of the hand holding innovation: if you are holding hands with somebody, it is quite natural to go from that to a gentle squeeze to demonstrate affection. So now we have a fifth element of innovation: the squeeze of the hand of your neighbor prior to releasing it.

None of these gestures are particularly sinister, other than that they are unsanctioned and can give rise to a false ecclesiology, which I guess is sinister. I only mention them to show how one innovation can lead to a progression in which many others are spawned. And notice how, while the Vatican never mandated lifting joined hands or anything like that, all those gestures can nevertheless be traced back through a logical regress back to an official act of the Church in 1958 which permitted the laity to join the priest in saying the Pater out loud.

A great example of how changing the liturgy, even in seemingly minute ways, can lead to things that the people making the changes may have never imagined.