Movement Prayer

Hand motion is vital to movement prayer. This article introduces some basic gestures that can be incorporated with congregational prayer.

"Every part of the body is an expressive instrument of the soul. The soul does not inhabit the body as a man inhabits a house. It lives and works in each member, each fibre, and reveals itself in the body's every line, contour and movement" (Romano Guardini, Sacred Signs [St. Louis: Pio Decimo Press, 1956], 15). Watch any person while he or she talks, and you will find feeling being expressed, not just in the words being spoken, but in the whole being of the person speaking in movement and gesture. Watch particularly the hands. Apart from the face, the hands may be most expressive. They may move animatedly when the person is excited, be clenched if he is worried, or lie quietly in his lap if he is speaking thoughtfully or pausing momentarily in his thought. The movement of a person's hands can also belie his words. The hands may indicate that the person is feeling the opposite of what he is saying. Hands are instruments of truthful expression. They are also instruments for work, for doing violence, or for loving. Hands give, take, and receive. They surround and hold, and they release and send forth. Expressive and useful as they are in the ordinary business of life, it cannot "but be that in prayer, where the soul has so much to say, so much to learn from God, where she gives herself to him and receives him to herself, the hand(s) should take on expressive forms" (Guardini, Sacred Signs, 16). The church has traditionally encouraged and maintained some prayer movements of the hands. Let us look at them and see how they serve the soul in its conversation with God. Close your hands, one over the other, interlocking your fingers, draw your closed hands in toward your body, allowing this movement to draw your head and upper body down over that space deep within you where God dwells … hold this position … pray … sense how this position affects your prayer … rather than being a prayer of exuberant praise, it is more likely that your prayer is quiet, private, personal, a meeting with the Lord who is hidden deep within and who is waiting patiently for you to come and be alone with him. On some occasions in your prayer life, come to this physical and spiritual place to meet the Lord. Next, open your hands and place the fingers and the palms flat against one another … hold this position for a moment.… There is no power in your hands. They can neither inflict injury nor be put to active service. They are, as it were, bound invisibly in a position of defenseless obedience. Close your eyes and pray in this position.… Now, open your hands wide, palms up … In this position, your hands are ready to receive or to give. They can absorb healing or offer praise. Close your eyes and pray.… With one hand (the one you use most often), make a fist … bring your fist down across your breast and strike yourself several solid blows … When you strike your breast, make sure you give yourself an "honest blow" (Guardini, Sacred Signs, 30). This gesture must speak to your soul of its need for repentance and contrition. It must awaken your senses to the need to shatter the old self and put on the new. Pray this movement prayer several times, slowly and with concentration. Let it communicate its meaning to the soul and to the Lord. Allow these movement prayers of the hands to assist you in your private and your public prayer. If you lead congregational prayer, teach your people to raise their hands in praise at the beginning of the preface; to hold their hands, palms together, in reverent attentiveness during the eucharistic prayer; to strike their breasts in earnest at the "Lamb of God" or during "Lord, I am not worthy.… " Here is a penitential rite (Form C) which you might want to teach to your congregation. Because we have been afraid to be ourselves. Draw your hands back tightly and protectively against your body Free us to be what you have created us to be. Relax your hands and arms, open them out wide and free Lord have mercy. Because we have hurt others by what we have said or done. Make fists of your hands and raise them forward as if to strike out Help us to bring healing instead. Cup your hands as if to hold a soothing ointment, and then turn your hands over to let that ointment run down over those you have hurt Christ have mercy. Because we have been greedy with our time and our possessions, Claw your fingers in tightly toward each other with a feeling of grasping Teach us to give and to share. Open your hands and arms, spreading your fingers wide, in an expansive movement Lord have mercy. May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins and bring us to life everlasting. Amen.