Father, we see in our parishes that during the Our Father, the faithful often open their arms in the orant position. But isn’t this gesture meant to be exclusive to the priest?
(A faithful non-orant)
In the Roman liturgy, the raised hands—following Psalm 140, “Let my prayer rise before you like incense, the lifting up of my hands like the evening sacrifice”—are always reserved to the priest as a high priestly gesture when he pronounces solemn liturgical prayers (the collect, super oblata, postcommunion, the Eucharistic Prayer, sacramental prayers, and other prayers proper to his office). Especially during the Holy Sacrifice, the raised hands recall the outstretched arms of Christ crucified in the act of offering the redemptive sacrifice: in the celebration of the Mass, in fact, the priest acts in persona Christi, and his mystical union with Him reaches its summit. When not pronouncing priestly prayers, the priest holds his hands joined like all the faithful, as a sign of humble contemplation before the Divine Majesty and fervent surrender to His will.
Some advocate for allowing the faithful to raise their hands during the recitation or singing of the Our Father, as a sign of the dignity of their royal priesthood, expressed most especially in the Pater Noster, introduced by the unique exhortation: audemus dicere—we dare to say. Indeed, it is the Lord Himself who gives us the boldness to call God our Father, and this boldness is grounded in the baptismal and chrismal character imprinted on the soul of God’s children: sons in the Son.
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