When praying the Lord’s Prayer during Mass, what should we do with our hands? In the Catholic Church, the rules for public worship (liturgy) are strict. They separate the role of the priest from the role of the people in the pews.

The priest is explicitly instructed by the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) to pray the Lord’s Prayer with hands outstretched and elevated (known as the orans posture).

However, Church rubrics direct the people in the pews to keep their hands joined. Outstretched hands are considered a “priestly gesture” during the Mass, so laypeople, deacons, and non-concelebrating priests are not supposed to use it.

The Church issued the document Ecclesiae de Mysterio in 1997 to address a number of unauthorised modifications taking place in the liturgy. It specifically mandated that “neither may . . . non-ordained members of the faithful use gestures or actions which are proper to the . . . priest celebrant” (EM, Practical Provisions, Article 6, §2). Consequently, in the liturgy, laity should not be praying with hands outstretched.