Eh, it’s not the germs. I don’t mind germs at all, knowing they’re inescapable, but I despise touching and especially holding other people’s hands. There is something intimate about it for me that grosses me out when I have to do it to strangers. I guess that’s the point, that hand holding is supposed to make friends of strangers, but I still don’t like it. I’ll become intimate with people on my own terms, thanks.
That sucks. I’d still try to politely decline though. What’s he going to do, excommunicate you? 
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[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
I agree with you on that last part. According to the GIRM, though (General Instruction of the Roman Missal), there IS supposed to be music at Mass, even the Psalm is supposed to be sung rather than read.
I don’t find that there are too many masses anymore where basically the whole thing is sung! I do agree this is a tad formal for your basic Sunday obligation mass. But cutting it down to 35 minutes is a little overkill in the other direction, IMO!
Right! But the thing is, it’s not so much that it affects me, personally, at a given Mass, but that BECAUSE the priest says to do it, it leads people to believe that this is what you are SUPPOSED to do, and this is how it spreads from parish to parish. There are going to be kids who grow up in that parish who will be surprised when they go places it is NOT done, and I just think that is Not Good.
Thankfully we’ve not been infected by that one yet. I did once see someone try to do it at my parish, but she was given very short shrift by those around her.
Good for them!
Aww, the poor dear! Rejected in God’s house when she tried to extend her plump, moist hand in Christian love! For* shame, *people. Jesus would have taken it, I tell you! (Though afterwards, he might have surruptitiously wiped his hand on his robe.) 
We had a parish priest that we loved when my brothers and I were small, before all those Vatican II changes. He could say (and chant) his mass in Speed Latin- the whole thing was done in under 30 minutes. His sermons on Sunday were about 2 sentences long.
He didn’t stay in our parish very long.
About the OP, I hate all that fake touchy-feely stuff in church. Maybe we could replace it by spitting on each other’s shoe. It would feel more in sync with one’s true feelings, and be more hygienic.
I’m young enough to be a post-Vatican II baby, but from what I have heard about it, that is incredible! Was your parish small? I grew up in a huge parish, and there would be so many people at Mass, communion alone would take about 15-20 minutes (our parish still had a communion rail in those days, so it wasn’t this speedy, no-kneeling deal that they do now). And, of course, the folks would never let us leave until AFTER the priest was out the door!
Why not? (Sorry for the hijack, but this is so interesting to me!
Hey! I’m not saying I don’t love my neighbor (for the most part)…I just am not the hand-holding type! (Ask my husband…I hardly ever even hold HIS hand!) 
OMG! Flashback!
This lady came into a shop I was working at. I was already wary of her because she was wearing a vest made of novelty fabric depicting halloween pumpkins and she also had matching dangly earrings. She walked up to me and…
I’d better spoiler this, as it is pretty horrifying:
She not only OFFERED ME A HUG, but opened her arms and started advancing on me! :eek: :eek: :eek:
I stepped back and said “no thank you.” She started to lecture me on the wonderfulness of hugs, strongly implying that I had some sort of problem because I didn’t feel like hugging some weirdo in a jerky pumpkin vest. Then she opened her arms AGAIN and started towards me AGAIN! Holy shit! This lady was seriously going to foist a hug on me whether I liked it or not. I said “No. I. Do. Not. Want. A. Hug!”
So she dropped her arms and reached into her pocket and handed me a little slip of paper. It was a cutesy little “coupon” good for one hug. She told me I could give it to someone and claim my hug later. I tried to give it back to her, but she refused to take it. I threw it in the garbage can and hid in the back room until she left.
So, yeah. I guess I don’t mind holding hands with strangers as much as some of you, but I really would prefer not to. And hugging? Is OUT OF THE QUESTION THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Sheesh!
Is the “turn around, shake hands and exchange a few awkward words with your neighbors” tradition a new thing also, or does that go farther back? I’ve been through it once or twice and not had a clue what to do.
I’m pretty sure that was added with the other Vatican II changes. There are a lot of traditionalists who don’t care much for it. It doesn’t bother me too much, because it IS an official part of the Mass, and IMO shaking a person’s hand is the APPROPRIATE way to interact in a friendly way with a stranger…not holding hands!
If you find yourself at a Mass again, just shake hands with each person around you, and say “peace be with you.”
Sarahfeena, I’m not just Catholic: I’m 2/3 Jesuit, 1/3 Franciscan and 3/3 from Spain. The Jesuits don’t do the kumbayah stuff; the Panchos do it left and right and in between. The three years that my parish was iconoclast Augustins I felt like an alien except in the Spanish mass, where the Portuguese-born priest remembered he was talking to a bunch of iconoloving Hispanics. (The anglo priests didn’t understand why they had problems finding Spanish-speaking catechists in a parish with over 70% Hispanics… wonder if telling Cubans not to wear their medals of Our Lady of Charity of Copper would have anything to do with it? :smack: )
The first time the Catholic church of the USA had an altar girl was in the 1970s in the diocese of Chicago and they asked Rome for permission.
The first time the Catholic church of Spain had an altar girl is Date Unknown but definitely before the XV century and nobody thought they had to ask anybody about it.
Catholics aren’t a single “block” any more than Christians are one… we’re more like granite (with a bunch of different little grains making the whole thing) than obsidian.
Note to self: see if I can find Dad’s old catechism, that should be able to solve the doubt re. shaking hands when we “give the peace” or whatever that moment is called in English.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, and I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I thought 1 billion Catholics make up a monolith! I have a very religious friend who is into the Catholic Charismatic movement, and that is VERY different from what I am used to! I just meant that in THIS CASE (the parishes around Chicago where I have experienced this), I think this kind of thing is a direct reponse to the popularity of the mega-churches, and the problem of Catholics leaving because the Mass is too staid and formal (people left my parish, which used to be rather traditional, to go to a parish in the city that was more “welcoming” and has more upbeat, “joyous” music) So, I was really speaking just of my personal experience, in the place where I am from.
My folks live in California, and there is rampant hand-holding there. I would surmise that this is indicative of the general culture in California.
It was a revival of the ancient “kiss of peace”. For the first thousand years or so of Christianity, the mass / divine liturgy had the kiss of peace, in fulfillment of the command to “greet one another with a holy kiss”, where the congregation would actually kiss each other on the mouth (and there were theological explanations for this – it had to do with a transfer of spirit/breath). Clergy would kiss clergy, and as the men and women stood in separate parts of the church, men would only kiss men and women, women. It’s reported that in Hagia Sophia in Chrysostom’s time, the kiss of peace would take an hour or more to complete.
As time went on, though, the kiss became less common. For a while in Western Europe, the kiss was accomplished by passing around a “pax” icon that each person would kiss. The kiss survived in the eastern rites, but only among clergy; in the Latin rite, until the V2 reforms, the kiss had transformed into an embrace, and was only done at solemn mass – the priest would give the “pax” to the deacon, who would give it to the subdeacon, who would give it to the servers. The revival of the kiss a part of the mass that the laity participated in was part of a self-conscious attempt to go back to a “primitive” form of the mass, though with the actual kiss itself replaced with some other form of greeting, in deference to modern cultural norms.
It was a common custom in England in the 16th century. Whenever you greeted a friend, you were supposed to kiss them. Apparently, it didn’t matter if the friend was male or female. (Royal ambassadors wrote home about this “delightful custom.”)
Yet another reason why I’m glad I was born in the modern era.
Thanks for that history, yBeayf. I’ve always wondered why it is called the “kiss of peace” when it doesn’t involve any kissing! Now I know. Question…WAS it revived at Vatican II with the institution of the Novus Ordo?
Green Bean, I just loved your story. You’ve made my Friday.
Yes. Many of the reforms after (not at) V2 were intended to revive ancient practices that had fallen into disuse. Some of them, such as the offertory procession, the kiss of peace, and communion under both elements were actually practiced in early Christianity; others, such as having the priest face the people, or the offertory prayers based on Jewish brachos, have been shown to have been the hallucinations of mid-20th-century liturgists.