Is EWTN luke warm on kneeling for Holy Communion?

It has been a while since k.c. has seen a televised Mass from EWTN. Hopefully things have changed...Yes, those of you who have seen them already know what k.c. will say!

Why do so few people @ EWTN kneel for Holy Communion? I understand when people who are ignorant of what the pope is doing, ignore him. They are too busy putting bread on their table, or don't have cable or a computer. But what about pope groupies? (k.c. is one! and so are EWTNees!) If you watch EWTN, then I know you have cable! What about we who follow what the pope is doing and deliberately *choose* ignore his humble invitation to kneel for our dear Lord?

Father Anthony Ruff of with the 'in' crowd blog, Praytell, says he knows why American Catholics, both conservative and liberal refuse to kneel.....it is because we have benefited form two generations of good, post Vatican II liturgical formation !! Really!!!

There are those who would say that EWTN has gone over to the 'dark(usccb) side'. Ever since it passed out of Mother Angelica's control. I don't know what the problem is, but the daily spectacle of stalwarts 'standing' with the American Catholic Church against the Holy Father is a huge disappointment.

k.c.

Kneeling suggests a childish attitude toward ordained authorities!

Praytell blog recently discussed our favorite topic: Kneeling for Communion!

Pray tell is run by Father Anthony Ruff OSB and is affiliated with Liturgical Press. On their home page, Father 'says' he actually likes kneeling..... would that it were true! Father shows a different side in the following exchange with someone called 'raymond lull'. (raymond apparently has been reading this blog!) Lull is red and Father Ruff's words will be green.

Lull>>>

The lands where latin-rite Catholics still kneel for Holy Communion are largely former Soviet Union republics…e.g. Latvia, Estonia, Kazakhstan. I have visited Latvia but know only second hand of the others.

If one were to think about what Catholics from these countries do not have in Common with the U. S. Catholics, the elephant in the room would be that one group has endured intense persecution for their Faith and the other has not.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider, of Kazakhstan, is most certainly the reason we are even having this discussion. He is the man who convinced the pope to re-introduce the Communion kneeler into papal liturgies. For Bishop Schneider the act of kneeling conveys a message from your body into your soul. That message is dependence like that of a child who waits to be fed, and intense gratitude, like that of the one leper who bothered to come back to our Lord and fell on his knees before Him to thank Him! Does not the word eucharist mean gratitude?

The Holy Father is commanding no one to kneel! He does invite us….and as Amercans reject wholesale his humble invitation to demonstrate gratitude, we are saying way too much about ourselves.

Fr. Ruff>>

I think you’re making a few unfair leaps here. I wouldn’t assume that people who don’t kneel for Holy Communion aren’t as grateful, nor would I assume that people who kneel have greater gratitude. Surely the human heart is more complex than that. (Perhaps – just perhaps – some proponents of kneeling are judgmental of others and lacking in humility.) Regarding your last line, Americans are perhaps saying about themselves that they’re obedient to their Bishops (since our Bishops don’t permit kneeling) and that they’ve been well-formed by a couple generations of renewed liturgical practice.

Humility and complete dependence upon God are very good things. Jesus spoke often of them. The problem is that kneeling for Communion suggests, rather, complete dependence upon a clergyman who feeds you like a child. There is nothing in the teachings of Jesus to even hint that Christians should have this childish attitude toward ordained authorities in their community.

I think for this question we need a richer and broader understanding of receiving Communion: humility and adoration, yes, but not only! Also sharing in the entire Paschal Mystery, anticipating one’s resurrection on the Last Day, being divinized by God’s grace, being given one’s full human dignity, completing one’s action in the EP, sharing with the gathered community, anticipating the final Banquet, and so forth.

(Father's original comments did not have bold print)

Comments anyone?

k.c.

Jack Palance explains the Pope

This excellent article by Sandro Magister can be found on Father Z's blog here:


http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/09/overcome-idolatry-in-life-by-kneeling-at-during-mass/


Here is an excerpt.....


....But among the standard-setting practices of Benedict XVI, the one least understood – so far – is perhaps that of having the faithful kneel for communion.

This is almost never done, in any of the churches all over the world. In part because the communion rails at which one knelt to receive communion have been abandoned or dismantled almost everywhere.>>>>>

Why is it so least understood, so hard to figure out? Just listen to Curly (Jack Palance) explain the 'secret of life' to Billy Crystal!

Bishop Schneider and the Holy Father have figured it out!

Stop, don't burn the Koran! Burn Catholic Missals!

His Excellency Michael Mulvey has announced, via his website, the implementation of the new missal translation.

On the Corpus Christi Diocese website, goccn.org, there is a link to the USCCB's announcement of the new, true-to-the-underlying-Latin-prayer missal's implementation at the close of 2011.


Most everyone in the diocese is unaware that that all the familiar responses they say during Mass are being done away with. Of the hundreds of versions of the missal translated after Vatican II (into hundreds of languages) only one translation has been deemed to be deficient and worthy of being tossed into the dustbin..... Ours![don't ask why! there is no good answer for the USCCB, other than that the people who translated it were dishonest manipulators! May God have mercy on their souls.]

Hey, Mr. Gainseville burning preacher man! Don't burn the Koran! We'll send you thousands, wait,...MILLIONS of Oregon Catholic Press Missals which we will help you burn with extreme prejudice and animus! Give us time to take off work and we'll come join you!

k.c.

Alec Guinness was a kneeling Catholic!

Guinness on Vatican II's wake:

>>>>...Much water has flown under the Tiber's bridges, carrying away splendor and mystery from Rome since the Pontificate of Pius XII.... [T]he banalities and translations which have ousted the sonerous Latin and Greek are of a supermarket quality which is quite unacceptable. Hand shaking and embarrassed smiles or smirks have replaced the older courtesies: kneeling is out, queuing is in, and the general tone is like BBC radio broadcast for tiny tots....<<<< [courtesy of pblosser and joseph pearce]

...It is very sad that Guinness, who passed away in 2000, did not live to see any restoration of the Liturgy which he loved.

I probably have said this before, but I will repeat it anyway: Laity! do not be discouraged when our priests and bishops continue to stop their ears at our Holy Father's call to restore worship, and reverence, and humility! Better people than we have endured the same frustration --only worse because they had no straw at which to grasp, no distant glimmer.

I believe God is testing us! Our clergy, as whole, have royally failed that test! So now He -has given us a pope who is reaching over and around disobedient and unbelieving clergy...straight out to us-laity.

Can a bishop keep us from hearing the Mass in Latin? No! The Holy Father has given that decision to us-laity!

Can a bishop keep us from kneeling for Communion? No! The Holy Father's humble example has rudely interrupted the United States Council of Catholic Bishops' slickly worded info-mercial for standing.[How these bishops must dread that someone will ask them the meaning of the Holy Father's gesture. There can be no good USCCB answer to that question!]]

Laity! Get your Sensus Fidelium on!

If we don't kneel now...then we can blame no priest, no bishop, nor peer pressure. The Holy Father has given that decision over to each and every layperson.

Even more than that, he doesn't just hold kneeling out as 'an option'. Rather, his daily reminder at papal liturgies, all and every! exalts kneeling as the ideal!!

The Holy Father is gently inviting us to have our bodies do what our souls already need to be doing. True, the Pope issues no fiat, no bull, no command....he gestures like a nervous teenage boy who stands with unruly slicked down hair and a 'white sportcoat' and silently extends his hand to his would-be dance partner. And for now, we refuse. We sit, like the girl who pretends not to see because she's afraid of what her smart-aleck girlfriends might say ....

Alec Guinness RIP! and pray for us if you can!

k.c.