Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

I'm not sure how much I agree, but I found the following quote fascinating. Seems a bit harsh at first glance but...It was from an "Ask Father" insert in our Byzantine Catholic Church bulliten and describes why the "orans" position (laity praying with their palms up) during the Our Father at Mass is nicht zu gut. First the author (Fr. Perricone) argues that the gesture is strictly a priestly one but then says the following: (which vaguely reminds me of the beauty of the Irish dancers, who, in their restraint - arms always pasted to their sides - dignify the dance):

[It also] conveys a disfigured idea of prayer. What always characterized the Latin Liturgy was a disciplined, ascetic and restrained ritual of adoration. Rubrics ...imposed uniformity so as to produce beauty, while also bridling the personal excesses of piety which can produce distraction (and vanity).

Prayer is a lifting of the mind and heart to God, an exercise of intellect (conversation) and will (love/heart). These profound movements of the soul to God never include emotions, though emotions are inevitably moved as the will moves. But this is prayer's accidental, and entirely secondary, effect....Emotion easily drags man from his properly human acts of communication and love and the saints universally inveigh against it. For instance, St. Cyprian, "When we pray, our words should be calm, modest, disciplined...The same modesty and discipline should characterize our liturgical prayer as well." And St. Teresa, "Those deceive themselves, who believe that union with God consists in ectasies and raptures, and in the enjoyment of Him. For it exists in nothing except the surrender of our will...to the will of God.

Unsuspecting Catholics will unquestionably believe that the "orans" position enhances prayer's power. The writer Peggy Noonan suggests the orans want "to get more God on them." But this cannot be so, and it will not be long before the faithful equate a prayer's efficacy with the bombast of emotion. By that time they will not be speaking to God any longer, but only to themselves. -- Fr. John Perricone