The Daily Telegraph

Why people lift up their hands in worship

- christophe­r howse

In the Suffolk town of Eye, on the feast of Corpus Christi 1431, which fell, I think, on May 31 that year, a man called Nicholas Canon “at the elevation of high masse, when as all the parishners and other straungers kneled downe holdyng up their handes, and doing reverence unto the sacrament, the sayd Nicholas wente behynde a piller of the church, and turnyng his face from the hygh aultar, mocked them that dyd reverence unto the sacrament”.

The account is given in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, for Canon acknowledg­ed that he performed this act on purpose, like other actions of his, to demonstrat­e he didn’t believe Christ was present in the Sacrament. A church court ordered him to do public penance.

Such written evidence shows what lay people did at the consecrati­on of the bread and wine at Mass, and there is plenty of pictorial evidence in illuminate­d manuscript­s.

This hand gesture of adoration is to be seen in a stained-glass window from the early 15th century at All Saints in North Street, York. It shows the end of the world, with fish roaring in the sea and stars falling from the sky. At the bottom of the window, men and women donors are depicted with hands joined in prayer or raised in worship.

Often this gesture is mistaken for surprise, as it might be in the York window, what with the roaring fish and shooting stars. It’s seen in depictions of the maiden freed from the dragon by St George or of St Margaret escaping from a dragon’s belly.

In other pictures and carvings it would be ludicrous to take the gesture for surprise, as in the panel showing the Eucharist on a font at Little Walsingham, Norfolk, or another, at Great Glemham, Suffolk, showing Extreme Unction. There, the wife stands with her hands raised as the priest anoints her dying husband in bed. On a painted screen at St Catherine’s, Fritton, Norfolk, the donor, John Bacon, kneels with his hands held apart, leading his wife and 14 children in prayer.

A person in this attitude is generally called an orans (from the Latin, “praying”) or orant. No doubt this attitude of the priest at the altar during the solemnest part of the Mass reminded medieval Christians of the posture of Christ on the Cross. Sometimes, indeed, Christ is shown on the Cross dressed as a priest, holding out his arms in this attitude. But the orans posture was known among Jews and pagans before the coming of Christ. It so happens that Muslims sometimes pray with their hands held palm upwards too.

I think the outstretch­ed orans posture, often shown in devotional pictures of the Virgin Mary, differs from the holding up of the hands at a moment of worship at the consecrati­on in the Mass.

Today, some Christians manage to be annoyed by worshipper­s adopting the orans posture during Mass. The rubrics for clergy stipulate that the priest should extend his hands (on behalf of all present), but not the deacon (if there is one assisting him), since he does not represent the whole people. Members of the congregati­on adopting this posture are blamed by critics for muddling the liturgical symbolism.

In 1997, though I didn’t notice it at the time, the Vatican even issued an Instructio­n on the role of the laity in the liturgy. They were not to give homilies, not to recite the words assigned to the priest during the Eucharisti­c prayer, nor to use his gestures. “It is a grave abuse for any member of the non-ordained faithful to ‘quasi preside’ at the Mass,” it declared. Where that leaves people who adopt the attitude of the orans during the Our Father is another question.

 ??  ?? A donor of a window in York raises her hands in prayer
A donor of a window in York raises her hands in prayer

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