Praying hands (or the clasped hands) is a common prayer gesture or posture among Christians. The clasped hands are usually held before the heart as a symbol of submission, sincerity, repentance and obedience. Some raise their prayer hands as if pleading to God to grant their prayers.

Natahn Ausubel, in his book “Book of Jewish Knowledge said that this prayer gesture is not exclusive to Christians alone. He said the Jews even before the time of Jesus Christ, practiced it: “It has also been commonly assumed that folding the hands in prayer is exclusively a Christian custom. This is not the historical fact at all. As early as the post-Exilic period, when Jews prayed, they folded their hands, and they observed this custom for several centuries even after it had been adopted by Christians.”

Jesus, being a Jew, also prayed with clasped hands. You must have seen pictures or images of Him in the garden of Gethsemani in this prayer gesture. In other art works, you can also see the Virgin Mary and angels with their hands clasped as well.

Not only do Jews and Christians practice it but also the Hindus and Buddhists. The latter draw their palms together to show respect, to venerate their deities and to greet one another. This posture is termed the “anjali mudra”, anjali meaning offering and mudra, seal. Particularly in India, the word “Namaste” is said while doing this posture as a way of saying something like a sacred hello since the word “Namaste” is translated as “I bow to the divinity within you from the divinity within me.”

So what’s the big deal about praying with clasped or folded hands or palms drawn together? Pope Benedict XVI said in his book “Spirit of the Liturgy has this to say: “The body has a place within the divine worship of the Word made flesh, and it is expressed liturgically in a certain discipline of the body, in gestures that have developed out of the liturgy’s inner demands…” From this statement, the Pope is saying that the body certainly has a place in worship, in the Liturgy.

The Pope further went on to say that during the feudal times, those who swore their allegiance to a ruling lord would place their joined hands into the hands of their lord as a sign of their fidelity and obedience. In a similar vein, we place our hands in the hands of our Lord when we pray with our joined hands and pledge our fidelity and obedience to Him.

Is there a benefit to doing this prayer gesture? In yogic practice, drawing one’s hands together is believed to bring the left and right hemispheres of one’s brain together. Such a gesture is said to calm the mind.

I find that I am able to focus more on God and concentrate better when I pray using the praying hands gesture. It’s as if folding or clasping or drawing my hands together sends a signal to my mind to calm down. It is much the same when I kneel to pray. I see it as a time when I am in God’s presence so I do it to show my reverence to my Creator.

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