I refused to ever do it - what is the significance or insignificance of it ?

Just seems weird to me.

It was part of the hosanna shout as I recall.

I did it at the St. Paul temple dedication, and Hinckley led us through it on closed-circuit television. We had to wave the hankie from one side to the next while chanting: "Hosanna. Hosanna. To God. And. The Lamb." We had to chant it a set number of times, I think three.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2011 08:21PM by Makurosu.

as everyone around me did the holy hankie wave during the new Nauvoo temple dedication. I had already been endowed, married, and I thought I had seen it all. I was wrong. I was totally creeped out.

I was maybe fourteen, possibly sixteen when the Portland temple was dedicated. of course my parents hauled all seven of us kids to participate. i was already starting to question just a teeny bit and I was following along, just biding my time till we got to the cafeteria when they announced the the profit was on his way. we all got in to place ( whatever that was I don't remember) and everyone did the white flag wave. my mom was crying, my stomach was growling, then we proceeded to the cafeteria. that's about it. i don't remember what I was thinking or feeling other than boredom at that point, not sure but it's definitely weird.

I did when the Sacramento Temple was dedicated. Again, like some of the others, I thought I had seen all the strangeness the church could offer, but then that one came up and I really thought, what on Earth is all this craziness we do?

I just didn't get any of the temple stuff either, but always just felt that I was somehow not worthy enough to receive the inspiration to know.

We did it in front of a TV screen, since the temple dedication was on closed-circuit in a Stake Center several miles away. Talk about a surreal experience.

Can someone please explain to me what the white hankie wave/hosanna shout is, please?

You wave your hankie and shout hosanna, hosanna, hosanna fee fie foe fanna. Only without the fee fi's. This is done at temple dedications. I've done two. Its also done behind closed doors, at least the ones i attended were. no one could come in once the doors were closed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2011 08:42PM by AmIDarkNow?.

Spokane, WA dedication in 98. I was twelve or so and skipped school to go to the dedication, and I wanted to giggle the whole time while all these adults around me waved (clean -- this was specified in the instructions!) white hankies and chanted. Hee hee.

P.S. I wonder who brought a used hankie to the dedication so that suggestion was necessary? Would it desecrate the process with whatever boogers or sweat might be on it? I am still twelve at heart. LOL.

haha, I was at that same dedication. I was 14 and I remember thinking it was one of the weirdest and most embarrassing things I ever had to do. I stood there cringing while my parents were all into it....I stopped going to church 3 years later.

Yep. In the Toronto Temple I did, and I felt pretty silly doing it.

Hey, i was at the same dedication!! unfortunately i was pretty brainwashed at the time and did what i was told without too much thinking. The thinking started a few years later!

Fun info: our ward went down to help clean the toronto temple but i had a small child so i volunteered to babysit other kids while they took my vacuum cleaner with them. So i had a holy vacuum cleaner!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2011 09:32PM by karin.

Yeah at the broadcast of the Nauvoo temple dedication. One of my first WTF moments

Joseph Smith loved coming up with rituals and ordinances for the sheep to do. It was part of the scam and part of putting on the show to make people think that they were part of something special.

Some of them may have actually seemed exciting when they were initially introduced, but they haven't held up well over the years. The more accurate name for the Hosanna Shout as it's done in the modern church is the "Zombie Chant and Hankie Twirl."

I participated in one at a temple dedication. It really looked like something out of a zombie horror movie. You had this funky alien leader unit (I think it was Kimball at the time), pull out the hanky and twirl it, leading the zombie army in the most soulless, mechanical, spiritless chant imaginable. For some reason, everybody did it in a way that reminded me of those Frankenstein, Tonto and Tarzan Christmas greetings they used to do on SNL. (Especially, Phil Hartman's Frankenstein.)

Ho - san - nah...uh-oh must twirl hanky ...ho - san - nah...ugh!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ubem25WyN8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu3HgeMAxkI&feature=related


The Hosanna Shout ritual would probably be pretty stimulating if all the participants first partook of generous servings of sacramental wine and then got worked into a frenzy by a charismatic revivalist style preacher.

"And the angels...THE ANGELS...the very host of heaven...they're a-lookin' down on this scene at this-uh-very moment and they're-a-full of love,,,FULL OF EVERLASTING LOVE...for each an every one of us down here cuz we're doin' the right thing today! Didya hear me? I said we're doin'the right thing here-uh today-uh! Didya hear me? I said we're doin'the right thing here-uh today-uh!" Let me hear an amen! Let me here a louder amen! Let me here another one! You should be a-leapin for joy at the thought of the treasures that are being set aside for you in heaven at this-uh very moment!"


"And the Lord and the angels they-uh know everyone of you by name-uh! They know you, Rastus! They got your number, Betty-Lou! They know all about sistuh Sarah Jane and he she's lookin' aftuh her sick mother!...."

beats the **** outa me.

It's soo lame, some members participated with the tv-monitor spectacle. I didn't do it then, like most members in the ward I had no hankie for the occasion and it just seemed so lame. Afterwards there was talk about how "spiritual" it was. LAME!

Portland temple dedication, 1988. Felt pretty silly at the time.

Did it once at the Newport Bitch Temple a few years ago. Plus one to everything that's been said above. Silly, regimented, mechanical, pointless, non-uplifting, a letdown.

As a Never-Mo, what strikes me as funny is that this is the same thing that happens on pilgrammages to Fatima, Portugal in honor of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. The pilgrims wave white handkerchiefs, in this case as the statue of Our Lady of Fatima is paraded around the main square:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6SaC2t0hJs

The white hankies appear at 3:00 in the YouTube clip above. The YouTube clip is from the film "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima", but the white hankie segment is archival footage from the 1951 Fatima pilgrimmage.

and I must confess that even then - in my brain-numbed TBM state - I thought the whole affair was rather silly. Nevertheless, I soldiered on thinking it must be important somehow or we would not have done it. It was many more years before I finally came to the conclusion - stupid! stupid! stupid!

Early Mormons, to read some of their history, did it not infrequently for this or that. There is a story of some guy who went off on his mission to England with a heavy heart, leaving a very ill wife and kids at home. After he departed he turned around to see his kids waving with handkerchiefs and shouting, "Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! To God and the Lamb!" So... My guess is that the story is fabricated, like so many others.

Anyone who has been to a temple dedication knows that the people hold up their cloth and kind of robotically, with no apparent feeling or enthusiasm, "Hosanna. Hosanna. Hosanna. To God and the Lamb." *sigh* It's pretty awful. And embarrassing.

The missionary who departed left with some other guy. He left his wife and family sick back at the cabin and his spirit was rock-bottom. To cheer themselves up or perk up their spirits a bit, the two men turned and waved their hankies and did the "hosanna shout" at the guy's cabin.

Engh. I still think it's a fabricated story.

This is somewhat similar to Palm Sunday services in the Catholic Church. It's done to remember Christ's entry into the Holy City.

The palms are blessed and handed out in a different building, then the congregations sing "Hossana, Hossana, Hossana in the highest" in a procession into the church.

"Early Mormons, to read some of their history, did it not infrequently for this or that. There is a story of some guy who went off on his mission to England with a heavy heart, leaving a very ill wife and kids at home. After he departed he turned around to see his kids waving with handkerchiefs and shouting, 'Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! To God and the Lamb!'"

Waving a handkerchief in farewell shows up in a lot of Victorian-era literature, so it sounds as if a social convention of Joseph Smith's time was pressed into service for other purposes.

Was that people were chanting like monotone robots looking at each other as if to say "This is is? This is what all the hype was about?"

I was a total TBM. But it felt awkward and stupid.

. . . it came off like a scripted and monotone "Hip hip hooray".

Sorry, but you can't script a cheer.

Blue means you're into sailors, lavender=drag queens, fuschia=spanking, etc.

http://www.gaycityusa.com/hankycodes.htm

I was told when everyone sang "Spirit of Fire" that I might see angels or some other heavenly apparition...

...I was convinced the miracle didn't take place because I had touched myself sometime in the previous month.

I did it at the Anchorage re-dedication back when I was... 16? I found it a little creepy, but didn't think anything of it really. My sister, however, was ALL into it. She has said that it makes her feel like she's "part of something bigger."

I think it's interesting to note that EVERYONE I have ever talked to about that has had the same feeling their first time. Cult much?

Adelaide, Australia temple dedication, 2000. I loved all the kooky rituals back then. Still do, actually. It's silly and quaint, with a sort of folksy charm.