18/07/2023
POSTURE OF HANDS DURING "AMA NAMIN"
The faithful can do orans posture, joined hands, or holding each other's hands.
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CIRCULAR NO. 2023-03
July 16, 2023
Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
RE: ON THE QUESTION AS TO WHETHER THE FAITHFUL ARE ALLOWED TO HOLD OR RAISE HANDS DURING THE LORD'S PRAYER IN THE MASS
Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, and Reverend Administrators:
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) neither forbids nor prescribes raising hands or holding hands while praying the Lord's Prayer at Mass. Since the GIRM is silent on this matter, either forbidding or prescribing it rums counter to the intent of the instruction. Both gestures are liturgically accepted to accompany the praying of the Lord's Prayer. We are therefore exhorted to exercise sincere respect to each other in the gesture we express during the prayer.
Pope Francis remarked in his catechesis on March 14, 2017 that the Our Father "is not one of many Christian prayers, but it is the prayer of the children of God: it is the great prayer that Jesus taught us". If in the past, in the Roman liturgy, the Our Father was considered a presidential prayer, with the Vatican II liturgical reform it became the prayer of the entire assembly. Since the GIRM is silent on the gesture that should accompany the prayer, the faithful can recite or sing it with a gesture that can best help them to experience and express themselves as God's children.
For many of the faithful, it is in raising their hands in an orans posture that they can express the filial love and reverence contained in the prayer. Nothing in the Scriptures nor in the Christian tradition of worship forbids them from doing so. Praying with outstretched arms evokes the biblical attitude of the person praying (e.g. Moses in Exodus 17:8-16; Solomon in 1 Kings 8:54). Paul's instruction to Timothy is to "pray, lifting up holy hands" (1 Timothy 2:8),
On this matter, the Roman Missal in Italian, which gives some indications that the liturgical norms entrust to the national Episcopal Conferences, states: "During the singing or recitation of the Lord's Prayer one may hold one's arms outstretched; this gesture, provided it is properly explained, is to take place with dignity in a fraternal atmosphere of prayer" (CEI- Commissione Episcopale per la Liturgia, Precisazioni circa la normativa liturgica, seconda edizione italiana, LEV, Città del Vaticano 1963, p. LI),
We pray that we may grow in respect and fraternal charity as we delight in our identity as God's children and brothers and sisters with each other."
MOST REV. VICTOR B. BENDICO, D.D. Archbishop of Capiz
Chairman, Episcopal Commission on Liturgy
Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines EPISCOPAL COMMISSION ON LITURGY
121 Arzobispo St., Intramuros, 1099 Manila Telefax (02) 404.38.91. (02) 527.76.31 Email: [email protected]
Sources:
- Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines
- The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila
Photos:
- The Minor Basilica of the Immaculate Conception Manila Metropolitan Cathedral
- The Minor Basilica and National Shrine of the Black Nazarene
