Joined In Prayer

Why do we place our palms together when we pray? My Pope traces the origins of this gesture of submission.

- Benedetta Capelli and Tata Mapa

All over the world, the devoted faithful join their palms together when they pray. In fact, the topic once came up on a popular Italian TV quiz show with a question that really hit a spot for many viewers. The show was called L'eredita (which means inheritance), and it was hosted by the late Fabrizio Frizzi. The question was: When did the practice of praying with joined hands become customary?

On the screen were four possible answers, and who would have thought that the correct one was the least obvious option? Praying with joined hands is a custom that was borne very late in the history of Christianity; it actually gained popularity in the Middle Ages, and there’s no mention of it in the Gospel.

It was an answer that surprised many viewers who presumed the custom existed since the time of the apostles. Could it be that one of the most rooted practices in the history of the Catholic Church is actually a “novelty”? It seems as though the answer is yes! And how the tradition came about is a story that needs to be told.

THE ORIGINAL GESTURE

Paleo-Christian art from before the year 525 usually shows the faithful standing in prayer, with their arms open and palms facing up—a gesture that is now known as the Orans posture. More than a century and a half later, we realize that this early Christian pose is one that we still observe today. In fact, we replicate it in church when we recite the "Our Father," as it was allowed by the Italian Episcopal Conference in 1983. Since then, it has been acceptable to “keep our hands open” just as long as the gesture of addressing the heavens “is done with dignity in a fraternal atmosphere of prayer.”

THE ORIGINAL GESTURE