Why I Won't Hold Your Hand at Mass

Brothers and sisters:

I, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

First of all, please understand that Michael the Lesser cannot, under any definition of the same be considered a conservative Catholic. I actually prefer my Mass in English, I enjoy singing modern hymns and to my way of thinking there is nothing wrong with the priest facing the people as he leads our prayer.  I do have a problem with the holding of hands when it comes time to say the Our Father during the communion rite. The practice, I guess, is innocent enough but I do not participate in it, at least not at Mass because it is the wrong symbol being displayed at the wrong time.    The reason I am against it is very simple. Protestants use this gesture to convey unity because they do not have another that they can use in their worship services. A Protestant worship service normally consists of a hymn or two, the reading of the Word of God, and a sermon to help the congregation to incorporate the message into their lives.  Once in a while, they will distribute crackers and grape juice and call it the Lord's Supper but for the most part, they do so as a memorial to Jesus not as the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Christ to the Father as we see it.  We Catholics, on the other hand, have the Eucharist and it is this, the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity that is the real sign of our unity.  When we receive the Eucharist, we unite ourselves with Christ Himself and with every other Catholic in our worship space, in our city, in our country, and in our world.  We do not need to hold hands to signify our unity, the Eucharist does that for us.  This is one reason we Catholics are so particular as to who receives it.  The "Amen" that we speak as we receive this wonderful sacrament, reverberates throughout the universe and marks us as united in Christ. It says "Yes, I believe that the Eucharist is the Body of Christ and I am a member of that body."   The holding of hands during the Our Father is a gesture that is very much out of place as it comes before we have an opportunity to testify to the effectiveness of the Sacrament that is Most Holy.   Am I condemning Catholics who do this to the fires of the netherworld?  Of course not!  Mistakes made in ignorance are always completely forgivable and forgettable.  And, outside of the Mass, if you want to hold my hand when we say the Our Father together I am more than ready to do so because at that time the symbolism being portrayed does not run counter to that which we are conveying at Mass.   I am not going to pin my objections to the church's door in protest for I am not a Protestant, nor am I going to actively campaign for the excommunication of those that do it because while their intentions are misguided, they are good.  But, brothers and sisters, we ought to keep in mind the unity that the Eucharist brings us.  It is the Eucharist that we partake in that witnesses to the world that there is One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism that unites us all to the Father.