Can't kneel.

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bpbasilphx

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Yes, I know this sounds strange.

Fr. Brendan and I normally attend the local Melkite parish. We are dependent on public transportation and cannot go there this Holy Thursday.

The local Extraordinary Form on Holy Thursday will be very easy for us to get to, and the time will have us back home before nightfall.

Because of our physical conditions, we cannot kneel. (Well, maybe I could kneel, but at 300 lbs it’s difficult for me to get back up.) Would we scandalize people if we received the Holy Eucharist standing?

I will point out that Fr. B has to carry a large walking stick just to get around and not fall.
 
bpbasilphx said:
Yes, I know this sounds strange.

Fr. Brendan and I normally attend the local Melkite parish. We are dependent on public transportation and cannot go there this Holy Thursday.

The local Extraordinary Form on Holy Thursday will be very easy for us to get to, and the time will have us back home before nightfall.

Because of our physical conditions, we cannot kneel. (Well, maybe I could kneel, but at 300 lbs it’s difficult for me to get back up.) Would we scandalize people if we received the Holy Eucharist standing?

I will point out that Fr. B has to carry a large walking stick just to get around and not fall.
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When my father was alive and we went to the Tridentine Mass, he would receive standing up as he was on two sticks, and like yourself if he went down he’d be all day getting back up.

No one ever took much notice of it.
 
Whenever I see someone not kneeling in a situation where everybody kneels, I assume they have a physical reason for it.

We had a priest - a very holy, orthodox priest who gave great homilies that actually taught sound doctrine - who couldn’t genuflect. Nobody thought badly of him that I know of.

As the poster said above: if they’re scandalized, they need to be. People should be so focused on the Mass that they’re oblivious to what others are doing.
 
in a church with communion rails the usual practice is to ask an usher to have communion brought to you in the pew, or to stand at one end of the rail.
 
Just talk to the Priest beforehand, and if I were you, I’d bring a cane or something so it is obvious to people why you are not kneeling.
 
I can kneel, but I can’t kneel upright for very long…it makes my lower back throb. I should mention that I’m much closer to 50 than I am to 40. 🙂 Usually at Mass I kneel on the kneeler and rest my behind on the edge of the pew.

One Sunday someone asked me why I didn’t kneel upright, because what I was doing appeared to them to be lazy and disrespectful. I smiled and said that I spent 8 years in the Air Force lugging around wooden crates full of .50-caliber machine gun ammunition and huge chunks of AM-2 matting, and a further 15 years as a cop pounding pavement for 8 to 12 hours a day, and my back was full of arthritis and it was very painful for me to kneel upright after a minute or two.

I never heard another word.
 
It has been my experience that in parishes where people typically kneel for Communion few, if any, would even seem to notice if someone had to stand. And if any did notice they would not say anything. People in such parishes seem to understand that some people, for whatever reason, just can’t kneel.

James
 
In my experence, those who cannot kneel to recieve stand and bend a little. If you can’t, you can’t…and I’ve never seen a priest say otherwise or deny someone.
 
Thank you all for your answers.

I understand in some circles, kneeling vs. standing at Communion is a sensitive issue. The LAST place I want to cause scandal or wonderment is at the reception of the Holy Eucharist.

I understand that kneeling is the immemorial Western posture. Standing is more practical when one receives from the spoon, which is probably why it’s the norm in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and others.
 
bpbasilphx said:
Yes, I know this sounds strange.

Fr. Brendan and I normally attend the local Melkite parish. We are dependent on public transportation and cannot go there this Holy Thursday.

The local Extraordinary Form on Holy Thursday will be very easy for us to get to, and the time will have us back home before nightfall.

Because of our physical conditions, we cannot kneel. (Well, maybe I could kneel, but at 300 lbs it’s difficult for me to get back up.) Would we scandalize people if we received the Holy Eucharist standing?

I will point out that Fr. B has to carry a large walking stick just to get around and not fall.
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If it scandalises them, like the other poster has said, let them be scandalised. Remember Jesus picked wheat on the Sabbath and the pharises where scandalised. Did Jesus worry?
The mere fact that both you and Fr Brendan go to so much trouble to get there is already such a huge blessing on the whole community present, that I am sure there will not be one person who will be scandalised.
God Bless your efforts.
GraceAngel.
 
bpbasilphx said:
Thank you all for your answers.

I understand in some circles, kneeling vs. standing at Communion is a sensitive issue. The LAST place I want to cause scandal or wonderment is at the reception of the Holy Eucharist.
Click to expand...
For whatever reason it seems to be more of an issue where standing is the norm and someone decides to kneel instead.

Every single time that I have noticed someone kneeling instead of standing I have seen people shaking their heads and people pointing and whispering to neighbors.

But, I have never seen it be an issue where people typically kneel and someone decides to stand.

The experience of others may, of course, be different.

James
 
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