Wednesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time
Today, I would like dear friends make a little fraternal correction. It doesn't pertain to an abuse in the liturgy, but rather, just a small little practice that has sprung up that I might ask you to consider correcting. I have noticed when I visit various parishes, during the celebration of the new order of the Mass, that a sizable number of the faithful, during the Our Father, adopt a posture that is unique to the posture of the priest. The posture is called the orans posture. It is a posture that you can see in the catacombs, painted on the walls of the early Christians. It represents Holy Mother Church praying for the world.
In the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the posture of the orans ... the priest standing with his arms by his sides, his palms separated and facing each other is reserved for the moment when the priest is praying on behalf of everybody. He prays the collect, the secret and the post-communion prayer and the Our Father on behalf of the faithful ... and thus he prays in the posture of the orans.
This is one of the confusing elements of the older form of the Mass, when the priest prays the Our Father and the people remain silent during the prayer up unto the 'sed libera nos ad malo'. It strikes the new comer with a sense of oddity ... why does the Our Father get prayed only by the priest?
More...
Homily
