Check out this link for the Democrat and Chronicle’s write-up on today’s Catholic Women’s Conference at Aquinas.
After saying 8:45AM Mass, Bishop Matano greeted people in the halls for about 2 hours, visited exhibit space, and stopped by each of the approximately 90 tables of 10 women each in the Field House where lunch was being served. It was after 2 PM when he left. What a joy to have him want to be with us!
If the above link doesn’t work for you (D&C blocks sometimes) just go to www.DemocratandChronicle.com and tonight it is the lead story.
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My wife can’t stop talking about. It was apparently a REAL Catholic women’s conference!
It was an absolutely WONDERFUL time. Mass with Bishop Matano as presider & homilist, rosary prayed by almost 1000 women together, three dynamite speakers who discussed true femininity & unflinchingly espoused Catholic moral teaching, two rooms-full of authentically Catholic vendors, and Eucharistic adoration to round out the day. AWESOME! And I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised by the D&C article. It reflected the joy that women experienced being at the conference, without taking typical sarcastic swipes. Refreshing!
I heard the conference was fantastic! Wish I could have been there.
My friends also said how great it was except for the music at Mass. For them it was too modern and they didn’t like holding hands. But other than that, they liked it very much.
I did not hear the Bishop call for hand-holding. Maybe I missed something? Hand-holding is not in the rubrics, as best I know. And it has not been in place long enough to be ranked as a “custom.” So I think there is no need for people to feel they need to participate in hand-holding or even hand-shaking. A simple “Peace” nod on either side of us I believe is sufficient, and not distracting from Christ’s Real Presence on the altar.
I personally didn’t care for the music either. In fact, it was the one area that I scored down on my evaluation. But I’m willing to cut the organizers a little slack on that when the rest of the day was good. For the first conference of its kind in the area, with nearly 1000 women in attendance & no flagrant liturgical abuses, no security snafus, great speakers, lunch provided without a hitch, I think the organizers deserve accolades for pulling together a great day. As for hand-holding, I must have been out of the room for that. I never heard anybody say anything about joining hands.
There are very few rubrics for the members of the congregation. There is no rubric for what the laity are to do with their hands during the Our Father. Therefore, it would be wrong to mandate that the laity hold hands (or lean on the pew in front of them, or fold one’s hand with interlocking fingers, or hold them together in front of one’s self, or put them in or take them out one’s pockets.) Why does no one object to the parenthetical postures but only to holding hands? The problem I have seen is when the priest tells everyone to move across the aisles and hold hands. Our former pastor used to do this and everyone did so. Now that the suggestion is not made, fewer and fewer people choose this posture and it seems almost completely restricted to family groups. Now, the priest holding hands with the deacon, servers, EMHC, etc is clearly an abuse.