Jun 11 Wed
Why do we use gestures in the Mass?
The liturgical celebration includes signs and symbols that refer to creation (light, water, fire), human life (to wash, to anoint, to break bread), and the history of salvation (the rites of Easter). These rites, gestures, or elements are inserted in the world of faith and assumed by the power of the Holy Spirit; thus, they become instruments of Christ’s salvific and sanctifying action.
The sacramental celebration is a meeting of God’s children with their Father in Christ and the Holy Spirit. This meeting is expressed as a dialogue through actions and words. The symbolic actions are already a language, but the word of God and the response of faith should accompany and enliven these actions. The liturgical actions signify what God’s word expresses: the gratuitous initiative of God and the faith response of his people.
The liturgical gestures may be a useful ceremony (like washing the hands after the imposition of ashes or anointing), a sign of veneration toward persons (bowing) or things (kissing the altar), an accompaniment to the words (like making the sign of the cross on the Book of the Gospels or extending the hands during the Eucharistic Prayer), a specifically Christian symbol (the sign of the cross), or a gesture accepted from the socio-cultural environment (giving the instruments in the priestly ordination).
The most important liturgical gestures are:
• the sign of the cross,
• striking one’s breast (a sign of repentance and humility),
• looking upward (used by Jesus and included in Eucharistic Prayer I),
• anointing (a symbol of the grace infused with the sacrament),
• giving of ashes (a sign of humility, repentance, resurrection, and trustful prayer),
• laying on of hands (signifying a supernatural action being performed by God),
• raising and extending hands (prayer, seeking and expecting help from God),
• joining one’s hands at the chest (a gesture of prayer), and
• giving the sign of peace.
The most important liturgical body postures are:
• standing (a sign of joy and the freedom of God’s children),
• kneeling (a sign of repentance, penance, or adoration),
• sitting down (the attitude of a disciple listening to the teacher),
• bowing one’s head (reverence given to the name of Jesus, Mary, or the saint of the day),
• bowing the body (toward the altar when there is no tabernacle, within the Profession of Faith at the words, “by the power of the Holy Spirit”,
• prostration (only on Good Friday and in priestly ordination), and
• procession (a symbol of the pilgrim Church, done several times within the Mass and in some solemn celebrations around the church or in the streets).