Non Flectamus Genua: The Anti-Kneeling Movement in Modern Catholicism

To kneel or not to kneel?

Those of you who are familiar with the Church's traditional rite of the Roman Mass will have heard the words Flectamus genua many times over the course of a liturgical year. They mean "Let us kneel." They are given as an exhortation either by the priest or the deacon to the faithful to kneel at certain times in particular liturgies. They are most commonly heard at Masses of Ember Days (special penitential days) and during the Solemn Petitions (Intercessions) on Good Friday, when the Church prays for various needs and groups of people, asking God for their salvation and their conversion to Christ and to his Church. There are, of course, other times when the faithful kneel at Holy Mass, and when the exhortation Flectamus genua is not heard or necessary. The sensus fidei (the Catholic faithful's sense of faith) is sufficient to motivate them to fall to their knees at these times instead of remaining standing or sitting. This is most evident at the double Consecration at Mass and also, traditionally, throughout the Roman Canon (called the "Eucharistic Prayer" in the modern rite), at the Ecce Agnus Dei, etc.

If Flectamus genua means "Let us kneel," then the title of this article, Non Flectamus Genua, means, of course, "Let us not kneel." The question of whether or not to kneel at certain moments in the Mass does not even come into question in the Traditional Roman Rite, since all the rubrics are so clearly set down in the Church's traditional liturgy. However, in the modern "Roman" rite, things are more ambiguous, and discussion — and even division — exists amongst Catholics. And yet, this should not be the case. Whether or not to kneel should not be a source of confusion among the faithful for the simple reason that the answer to the question, "Should we kneel?" has already been given by the Church in her sacred Tradition of divine worship. When to kneel, when to sit, and when to stand at Holy Mass, during Eucharistic Benediction, at the Divine Office, etc. is not merely a matter of personal preference or individual piety, but of deep theological significance. Whether or not we kneel at certain moments of the Catholic Mass and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament can express different theological understandings of what the Holy Eucharist really is.

In the rich liturgical heritage of the Catholic Church's Roman Rite, gestures and postures are not arbitrary. They express deep theological truths and dispositions of the soul. Among these, kneeling holds a particularly venerable place. From the earliest days of Christianity, kneeling has been a sign of adoration, humility, and penance — an outward sign of the inward reverence due to God in the Church's sacred rites of worship.

The Biblical and Patristic Traditions

In both the Biblical and Patristic Traditions, the inspired Word of God and the testimony of the early Church Fathers and Doctors both bear witness to the importance of kneeling in the New Testament and in the early centuries of the Catholic Church. For example, St. Paul speaks of the importance of kneeling in these two crucial passages from his letters:

For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all paternity in Heaven and on earth is named (Eph. 3:14);

and

[Jesus Christ] humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to death on the cross. For which cause God [the Father] also hath exalted Him, and hath given Him the Name that is above all names: That in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow (of those that are in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth), and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:8-11).

In the first passage cited above, St. Paul mentions kneeling as an acknowledgement of the universal paternity (i.e. authority) of God over all creation. In the second passage, he gives another reason why all creatures must bend the knee before Jesus Christ: because He humbled Himself through obedience on the Cross and, in doing so, was exalted by His Father and given the Name above all other names. When we bend the knee before Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, we acknowledge both His humility and His exaltation; we imitate Him in His humility, and we glorify Him in His exaltation.

The early Christians universally acknowledged this truth. We have the testimony and proof of this from many of the Church Fathers and Doctors. Here are just two examples, taken from Tertullian (the "Father of Latin Christianity," who died around the year AD 220), and St. Basil the Great (Bishop of Caesarea, who died in AD 379):

The knees feel fatigue, but the spirit is strong. Even so, we Christians pray on our knees (Tertullian).

We genuflect on the Lord’s Day, not only because we rise together with Christ and are reminded of the grace that has been given us, but also because this gesture is a symbol of humility and contrition (St. Basil the Great).

The Magisterium, the Saints, and the Church's Constant Tradition

The later Magisterial documents confirm the Catholic Tradition that maintains kneeling as the most appropriate gesture for worship, especially in the Divine Liturgy and in Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament:

The posture of the body should be such as to express the sentiments of the heart and soul. Thus we bend the knee as a token of our humility (The Roman Catechism: On the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist).

Kneeling at the moment of consecration is an act of humility and adoration before the Lord’s Real Presence in the Eucharist (Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Benedict XVI)

The faithful should kneel at the Consecration, unless prevented by reasons of health, [...] (General Insruction on the Roman Missal)

And just a small example of the many Saints who have expressed this same belief:

When we behold Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, let us humble ourselves and kneel before Him with the deepest reverence, for He is truly present before us (Visits to the Blessed Sacrament, St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Doctor of the Church).

There is one thing I would like to say about prayer... and that is the importance of bodily posture. When one kneels and bows, it helps to humble the soul and dispose it for divine things (St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of Mystical Prayer).

The Mass is the highest form of prayer. Let us not attend it lightly. Let us kneel with the angels (St. Padre Pio, Priest and Stigmatist).

There is, to my knowledge, not a single Saint, Doctor of the Church, Church Father, or Magisterial document from Biblical Times up until about 1970 that presents standing as the normative position for Divine Worship during the Canon of the Mass, during Holy Communion, or at Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction, in the entire Western Catholic Tradition. Why then do some prelates and theolgians today insist on abolishing the Catholic practice in favour of standing at these times?

The Anti-Kneeling Movement and the Cult of Human Dignity

Recently, a notorious American Cardinal decided that he would go on a crusade against Catholics in his diocese who choose to kneel for Holy Communion. Because the reception of Holy Communion is "not a private action but rather a communal one," he said, and because, as the faithful come forward to receive Holy Communion, they "process together as an expression of their coming forward as the Body of Christ," they should receive Communion standing and refrain from kneeling — because, apparently, to kneel at this moment would "impede the liturgical procession that takes place during the sacred Communion ritual." He went on to write that

disrupting this moment [of the Communion procession] only diminishes this powerful symbolic expression by which the faithful, in processing together, express their faith that they are called to become the very Body of Christ they receive.

In other words, don't kneel to receive the Body of Christ because you are the Body of Christ! And in order to drive home his point, the Cardinal added:

No one should engage in a gesture that calls attention to oneself or disrupts the flow of the procession; that would be contrary to the norms and tradition of the church, which all the faithful are urged to respect and observe.

The norms and [T]radition of the [C]hurch? And yet, as we saw briefly, the Tradition of the Church has always been for the faithful to kneel at this most sacred moment of the Mass: when they receive Holy Communion. At the Name of Jesus, every knee should bow (Phil. 2:10). If we must bow at His Holy Name, how much more should we not do so when we are in front of His Real Presence?

Another objection commonly put forward by modern Churchmen to justifying receiving Holy Communion standing (apart from the argument mentioned above; namely, that kneeling "disrupts the flow of the liturgical Communion procession"), is the following:

We have dignity before God and therefore should stand when receiving Communion.

But there is a problem with this statement. The first part is true: namely, we do have dignity before God. But the conclusion is false; this dignity of man does not imply that he should stand when receiving Our Eucharistic Lord. Man's dignity is not a dignity that is independent from God, as the modern cult of human dignity seems to imply. Our worth, our value, our nobility as a human race, created in the image and likeness of God, is not based on a certain independence from Him; rather, it is firmly rooted on our radical dependence on Him for all things. Even our very own existence is completely dependent upon God. If He stopped holding us up in existence at this very moment, then we would all vanish into nothingness on the spot. Furthermore, man's true dignity in rooted in his intellect and free will. And that dignity acheives its highest expression when man freely chooses to humble himself before His Creator. True dignity always leads to and inspires humility, not self-assertion. "I have dignity and therefore I will not bend the knee before my Creator" is a foolish statement that has no basis in truth and that fails to understand what human dignity really is. When man uses his freedom to rebel against God or to embrace certain attitudes and choices that affirm his "freedom from God," then he has strayed from the path of wisdom. Who had more "dignity before God" than the Blessed Virgin? And who was more humble than she? Mary understood that her true dignity came from being the handmaid of the Lord, completely and radically dependent on Him for everything!

Man has two fundamental choices when it comes to divine worship in the presence of the Most Blessed Sacrament: he can stand in pride, or he can kneel in humble worship. I'm not referring here, by the way, to those who cannot kneel for physical reasons. The Church has always understood that some people cannot physically kneel when receiving Communion, and she has always made provisions for them to stand. But there is a difference between saying "I cannot kneel" and asserting "I will not kneel". God understands the former, for He never asks of us what is physically impossible; but the latter cannot be called anything else than what it truly is: a form of pride, which in reality destroys our human dignity. When man refuses to bend the knee before God, he becomes little more than an animal — because what sets man and the Angels apart from every other creature is that they are endowed with an intellect and free will, and that they can use them to freely choose to worship God in humility.

The Non flectamus genua ("Let us not kneel") attitude of some Catholics today is based on a false understanding of human dignity. The cult of non-kneeling fails to take into account this central truth: that true human dignity is manifest in man's willingness to humble himself before God in a spirit of profound adoration. And because man is comprised both of a soul and a body, the internal humbling of the soul needs to be accompanied by the external humbling of the body.

I believe that the root cause of the crisis in the Church today is that it is a crisis of Faith, and this crisis of Faith is expressed first and foremost as a crisis of true adoration. Much of it is brought on by the anti-kneeling ideology that we have witnessed in the Church especially since Vatican II. And yet, the Second Vatican Council nowhere decreed that kneeling is to be abolished, or that the faithful should henceforth receive Holy Communion standing. Since we are in the deepest crisis of Faith in the history of the Church, the only remedy is to give, once again, to the Mystery of Faith (Mysterium Fidei: the Holy Eucharist) the honour and the reverence that it rightfully deserves.

Come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord God, our Maker (Ps 95:6, according to the Hebrew).

Flectamus genua!