Jerome

Jerome and me

the touchy feely parts of the ordinary form [of the Mass]

I’m a recent convert with Asperger’s. I have a REAL problem with the touchy feely parts of the “ordinary” form [of the Mass]...

Before addressing the question in the original post, I want to say I also have been diagnosed by my own daughter w/Asperger's syndrome.  I grew up in a relatively non-touchy non-feely environment.  And I have been thinking about my posture @ Mass for some time.

My first awakening experience was being an EM in a hospital in Pgh and then in a nursing home in MN.  You can't directly touch some patients in the hospital because of infection control.  You must wear rubber gloves, and sometimes face masks, and for a few patients, head coverings and gowns.

But the patients wanted us to come.  They were joyful that we came.  I shook their hands to let them express their gratitude, to let their joy run loose.

I had been a member of a parish in Oak Ridge TN for three years.  There was a couple with many children.  It was a running joke that they held hands during Mass.

So let's look at the sign of peace systematically.  We can start with married couples.  They have shared more than spit in their lifetime together.  It is totally appropriate for them to have a public display of affection on the occasion of joining with other part of the body of Christ to celebrate their "bodyness" and the one who makes them one.  They can touch in public in recognition and remembrance.  A kiss is totally appropriate.

Then there are their children, the fruit of their joining in love.  They honor their source by honoring their source, by touching the ones responsible for their being alive.

It can be hard to be a sibling.  Grievances and grudges happen.  What better time and place to put that aside than in a celebration of unity with their parents.  Touching and even a kiss is appropriate.

What is true of children can be extended to all of one's family, both by blood and by marriage.  Touching and even a kiss is appropriate.

Some are on the journey to being united in matrimony.  Public recognition of desires can be a chance to tell the world of where the relationship might head, could head, is wanted to head.

Then their are our neighbors in faith.  The ones we know are our friends.  Can we deny in public before God and our companions in faith, what we show in  public and private outside the gathering in faith?  Is that not hypocrisy?

As for our neighbors in faith, who are not our friends.  Does not Paul say, following Jesus, that we are one Body with them?  If our faith has meaning to us, can we deny to them what we give to others?

And then there are those who are not one in faith with us.  We are called to give witness to them.  By treating them as if we are already one with them in Christ, we show them who we want to be and who we want them to be.

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One of the questions that has occupied people for years is "How far should we go?"  For the Sign of Peace, Ok for the people in the pew in front; and behind; and on either side.  But whose responsibility are those standing in the aisles, in the back of the church?  If they are part of the gathered People of God, they are the responsibility of the gathered People of God.

There is a limit, though.  Which is why the narthex is important - a place to sign peace as preparation.

We like to think Mass has boundaries.  Decades ago (and in a few nostalgic places today) there was a bell to announce the beginning of Mass..  But is that when it begins?  Is not the act and process of gathering part of the gathering?  Is the celebration of the feast of Thanksgiving just a banquet, or is the preparation included?  The cleaning, preparing the table, the greeting at the door.  And also the purchase of the food, the choosing of the recipes, ....

So celebrations begin when the thought of the celebration enters the mind.  So let it be with the gsthering of the People of God to celebrate the Eucharistic Feast.

At the other end, there has always been controversy.  Some say Mass ends as soon as they receive Communion.  Others hold the moment is when the last hymn begins.  A few even wait until that song is fully sung.

But the words "Ite missa est" - Therefore you are sent - means the celebration and its fruits do not end at the walls of the gathering place.  The final charge is to continue outside what was begun inside.  The walls keep out the weather;  they should not be a barrier.

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original link: “Is it a rule that you have to give the sign of peace…?”