CONFESSIONS

Little Notes
Letters

Talk About Movies
Roamin' Catholic
Follow Me




Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

I Submit to Hand-holding

I once attended Mass at San Rafael in Rancho Bernardo, a great flying saucer of a church with floors sloping downward toward the center, leaving the altar at the lowest point. When the time came for the Our Father, those is the first row closed ranks with those on the altar, so that the priest was joined in a circle with the faithful.

You don't have to go to a church in the round to find Our Father hand-holding. In parish after parish around San Diego, I have felt the rumble as the faithful broke free of their pews and joined hands across the aisle, celebrating our common status as adopted children of God.

This may appear to some as another triumph of horizontal theology, of emphasizing the banquet part of the sacrificial banquet over the sacrificial part. But my chief objection to the practice of hand-holding during the Our Father, while similar, is more personal: it's distracting. At a time when I am supposed to be praying to God, I find myself thinking about the person next to me. I notice accidentals like the feel of their hand-- warm, cold, damp, dry, scaly, smooth-- the firmness of their grip, how much they tremble or twitch. But even if these qualities didn't register, there is still physical contact with another person.

I am attached to my senses. This is why I often close my eyes during prayer-- to keep the sensible world from distracting me. But there is no closing the nerves in my hand. I cannot avoid the feeling of that hand that is not my own. Touch is a highly immanent sense, especially when it comes to touching another person, especially a person with whom I am not familiar. I can't help but be acutely aware of them, and God tends to take a backseat.

I am joined in communion with my fellow man, but the whole point of our mutual endeavor-- the worship of the Father-- is lost. All that remains is the communion, and a shallow one at that, since I am holding hands not out of affection or fellowship, but because it is required of me.

I say required not just because it has become standard practice, but because charity almost demands it. When that other hand extends towards me, it charges the air with expectation. It hangs in midair, creating an empty space where my hand ought to be. Not to fill that space would be an insult. I have heard stories of non-hand-holders being willfully ignored during the post-Pater Noster handshake of peace. The owner of the neglected hand was so offended that they refused to offer the Peace of Christ that ought to exist between all members of the mystical body.

To avoid this rift, I submit to hand-holding. I might resist because I think it more important to do whatever is necessary to keep my focus on God, but the fact is, from the moment that hand is raised, my focus is blurred. Were my hands folded in front of me, I would be thinking about how the other person was feeling, whether they were offended, and if they were offended, how they were failing to judge me more charitably.

This would be an uncharitable judgement on my part-- not only would I be distracted, I'd be sinning. I would resent the practice all the more, and also the person next to me who sought to practice the practice. Best to just hold hands and muddle through.

I know we are saying the Our Father-- emphasis on the "Our." I know Christ recommended communal worship when He said, "Whenever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst."

But I wonder why we need this physical communion during the Our Father, when we are already joining our voices and our thoughts in common prayer to God. If people were to concentrate on the words they were saying in unison with their neighbor, wouldn't they sense a communion in their common praise and petition? "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

I wonder if people hold hands because the words have stopped signifying, because the sound of voices praying in unison, a more intellectual sensible than touch, fails to resonate. If that is the case, then no amount of hand-holding can make up for the loss.

TOP