[NYer]

ON BENDED KNEE: Teri Carpentier kneels during a service at St. Mary’s by the Sea in Huntington Beach. Kneeling, she says, is praying “with our bodies, not just our minds.” (Karen Tapia-Andersen / LAT)

[samiam1972]

I went to one of these no-kneeling churches when we lived in Wisconsin. I just got down on my knees anyway. During the children's weekday Mass, Fr. invited all the children to stand with him around the alter during the Eucharistic Prayers. I wouldn't let my kids go up there and we soon moved out of state. I couldn't wait to get out of there!

[vox_freedom]

From Cardinal Ratzinger's, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, 2000

The expression used by Saint Luke to describe the kneeling of Christians (theis ta gonata) is unknown in classical Greek. We are dealing here with a specifically Christian word. With that remark, our reflections turn full circle to where they began. It may well be that kneeling is alien to modern culture -- insofar as it is a culture, for this culture has turned away from the faith and no longer knows the one before whom kneeling is the right, indeed the intrinsically necessary gesture. The man who learns to believe learns also to kneel, and a faith or a liturgy no longer familiar with kneeling would be sick at the core. Where it has been lost, kneeling must be rediscovered, so that, in our prayer, we remain in fellowship with the apostles and martyrs, in fellowship with the whole cosmos, indeed in union with Jesus Christ Himself.
[highlights added.]

[Deo volente]

Kneeling "is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin," Father Martin Tran, pastor at St. Mary's by the Sea, told his flock in a recent church bulletin.

Preposterous! Absurd! Ridiculous!

(And a few other choice words which would get me banned from Free Republic.)

[marshmallow]

[Maeve]

Praying for these priests and bishops is important. But I am all for a medieval French-style through the bums out of the cathedral and city riding backwards on donkeys.

[siunevada]

A couple of years ago our new pastor 'jumped the gun' and announced that a change to standing was coming in a short time. The next week he announced that he had spoken too soon, but that if he had his preference, he'd prefer standing.

Since Catholics are woefully ignorant and like to keep the pastor happy, most started standing.

I tried it and didn't care for it. Since I knew what the GIRM said, I joined the group that kneeled, a group that continued to grow in numbers.

We had a hodge podge for over a year. I couldn't believe the pastor let it go on like that.

Maybe somebody finally said something to the diocese. The pastor announced that the bishop had issued a statement that the 'sign of unity' is kneeling in our diocese. Everybody's kneeling.

Yay!

Gee, big shock. Nobody's grumbling because they don't get to stand.

But. Just like the footdragging on the Missal translations, I'd bet the USCCB is going to try to force this on everyone.

I can't believe Madden actually used the 'spirit of Vatican II' phrase with a straight face. That's the one thats sets the alarm bell ringing.

Plus, it's so last century. Get hip, dude. We want our Latin back too.

[Military family member]

Our church has no kneelers, and my legs will not allow me to kneel without them. I keep pitching forward onto my face

[Salvation]

How about if we follow the leader?

Reuters - Sat May 27, 7:48 AM ET

Pope Benedict XVI prays during his visit to the sanctuary of Kalwaria in Poland May 27, 2006. Pope Benedict paid an emotional visit to the birthplace of his predecessor John Paul on Saturday and told Poles he was praying that their favourite son would move swiftly towards Catholic sainthood. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

[FatherofFive]

Kneeling "is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin"

The rest of the quote follows:

"After all, it's just a cookie!" continued Fr. Tran. "You think those people actually believe it is the Body of Christ!"

[Convert from ECUSA]

"Kneeling "is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin," Father Martin Tran, pastor at St. Mary's by the Sea, told his flock in a recent church bulletin. The Diocese of Orange backs Tran's anti-kneeling edict."

Well, we kneel in my parish! I guess that makes me and my fellow parishioners "rebels in grave disobedience and mortal sin." So would some of the great saints of the Church, like St. John Vianney, St. Louis de Montfort, St. Alphonsus Liguouri, etc. So.....fellow "rebels" in the Church, unite............yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

[franky]

I wonder what Fr. Tran would have said if he attended my cousin's funeral last Friday. It was completely Latin including the Mass being sung in Latin by the Choir.

It was at St Stanislaus RC Church, 17 Pulaski Hwy, Pine Island, NY. Archdiocese of New York.

There were 6 altar boys and the eldest was about 16. He assisted the Priest, a Monsignor in his mid 70s. By hand motions, the older altar boy directed the other altar boys, aged 5 to about 8 in their duties. They had the black hassocks and white pull over. The 5 year old looked like he was sent down from heaven to assist. They did not miss a beat. My local church is Novo Ordo and the servers are male and female wearing the usual white robes. Of course they don't know their right from their left in serving.

The amazing thing was the attendance at the Mass. My cousin had volunteered at the local Catholic Hospital for 13 years. It was their while volunteering that he had a stroke and passed a week later at age 87. His wife has Martha had died this past September at age 87 and also had a Latin Mass. I know my cousin was popular but not that popular to fill a church. Yes it was the Latin Mass that did it.

At one point during the Epistles, the 3 smallest guys sat on the first step of the altar. I would swear they were cherubim at the feet of our Lord.

The Monsignor turned as he was ready to distribute communion and warned the non-Catholics not to come for Communion. During a short homily over my cousin, he spoke of my cousin and his wife's piety and emphasized the holiness and sacredness of the Latin Funeral Mass. He emphasized the spiritualness and quietness and I really believe he was using that moment to compare the Masses.

He was adorned in black as I remember those Masses in the 1930s.

[TKDietz]

We used to have to kneel on a marble floor and memorize parts of the Bible or the student handbook as a punishment when I was in Catholic school. It gets extremely painful after a while. I wasn't the best behaved kid at the monastery so did enough of it to have a pretty good recollection of how painful it can be even almost thirty years later.

[Palladin]

These abused parishioners should just withhold their weekly contributions until kneeling is reinstated.

With some priests and bishops, this is the only message they will understand.