Getting rid of kneelers

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I’ve never even thought about my churches floor but I think it’s wood
 
Our parish does still have kneelers. Once I went to Mass at a different parish and they did not have kneelers. From what I could see, everyone stood during the Canon and Consecration.
 
exnihilo said:
My wife and I actually hate the kneelers my parish has and don’t use them. They are narrow and hit your knee in a place that will cause knee pain and stiffness if you use them often enough. I think they probably concentrate pressure on the patella tendon.

It is far more comfortable for us to kneel on the floor. The floor in the pew areas is carpeted using a very low pile carpet. Kneeling on tile or, sadly, concrete is less comfortable for me over time. I can’t say I’d be as enthusiastic to kneel on a really hard surface for a long time.
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I’ve experienced a few churches with kneelers like that. Also, sometimes the placement of the kneelers in relation to the pew can cause back pain. If there’s space, and nobody else is using the same kneeler, I just leave it up and kneel on the floor.
 
Blessings
Well, what is written and what was practiced are two different things. Latin stopped. The vernacular and culture of society was used. Saw videos of villages in Africa dancing to drums at mass. In USA, we went to English. And there was a priest who would not change(Mel Gibson’s Dads Religion). That priest was excommunicated and started a satilite from Catholism. It was the TRIDENTINE LATIN MASS.
Maybe in different areas, some Latin continued. But that priest, as above, was excommunicated.
Some Catholics were reading Bibles apparently before Vatican II. In Philly,we didn’t. When Vat II, encouraged Bible reading, we initiated a ceremony in HS.
In Christ’s Love,
Tweedlealice
 
Yes, my church does. If they didn’t I would kneel on the floor. I have been to churches where they have removed the kneeler before and I knelt on the carpet instead. Of course, those same churches had the tabernacle hidden somewhere out of sight too.
 
QwertyGirl said:
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phil19034:
Talk to father and then if that doesn’t work, talk to the Bishop before those kneelers are removed.
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I don’t understand the issue. Can’t you pray just as well on your behind as on your knees?
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It’s more than that. There is a theology about kneeling that comes from the time before Christ.

Romans and Greeks refused to kneel to anyone, eventually even refusing to kneel to their gods.

But the ancient Christians say kneeling as an act of humility.

People, esp powerful people need a dose of humility, which kneeling helps to give.

Typically, the people who want us to stop kneeling are usually not humble people themselves.
 
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phil19034 said:
Typically, the people who want us to stop kneeling are usually not humble people themselves.
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Do you really think so? I think that a fair number of people are just seeking order. " If we are all one, let’s show we are all one". Different people kneeling or standing, receiving both kinds or just one, on the tongue or in the hand, it can make it a bit more difficult to explain to those who are unfamiliar.
 
Augustinian said:
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phil19034:
Typically, the people who want us to stop kneeling are usually not humble people themselves.
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Do you really think so? I think that a fair number of people are just seeking order. " If we are all one, let’s show we are all one". Different people kneeling or standing, receiving both kinds or just one, on the tongue or in the hand, it can make it a bit more difficult to explain to those who are unfamiliar.
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It’s not as though people adopting different postures is a new thing. When I was a kid there was a man with a peg leg in our parish. He certainly didn’t kneel when everyone else did but there were no calls for everyone to stand because he couldn’t kneel.
 
Augustinian said:
Different people kneeling or standing, receiving both kinds or just one, on the tongue or in the hand, it can make it a bit more difficult to explain to those who are unfamiliar.
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It’s not really that difficult to explain. We have choices and people are free (at least for now) to choose what works for them because that is what the Church allows. Easy.
 
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Phemie said:
It’s not as though people adopting different postures is a new thing. When I was a kid there was a man with a peg leg in our parish. He certainly didn’t kneel when everyone else did but there were no calls for everyone to stand because he couldn’t kneel.
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Yes, but no one is saying that people who are not able to kneel do to physical issues are not humble. What phil19304 said was that people who “want us to stop kneeling” are usually not humble people themselves. And I tend to agree with him. Lets be honest, removing kneelers from Catholic churches is NOT motivated by concerns for the old and disabled parishioners who cannot kneel. It is motivated by wanting to force a change in the way people pray, especially they way they participate in the mass. It seems to me that this is indisputable. That being the case, why the motivation to force us to change our prayer habits? Well, kneeling during prayer certainly seems to me an very strong outward sign of humility before God. So it likely is a lack of humility that is one of their motivations.
 
Augustinian said:
I think that a fair number of people are just seeking order. " If we are all one, let’s show we are all one". Different people kneeling or standing, receiving both kinds or just one, on the tongue or in the hand, it can make it a bit more difficult to explain to those who are unfamiliar.
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In every parish where I have ever attended Mass regularly, this kind of variety is the norm. At the consecration some people stand, many kneel, and quite a few, for reasons of age or infirmity, remain seated. Most people opt to receive in the hand, standing, but a minority receive on the tongue, some standing and others kneeling. Nobody is ever surprised by any of this, nobody ever takes offense, and nobody sees a need to “explain” anything. The answer to your question, I think, is that the people who claim to be “seeking order” are themselves out of order.
 
BartholomewB said:
Nobody is ever surprised by any of this, nobody ever takes offense, and nobody sees a need to “explain” anything.
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I think Catholics understand this, and for the most part don’t take offense.

I was thinking more about how to explain it to the non-catholic masses that sometimes attend Masses. If you are attending a Catholic funeral with friends or business associates who aren’t Catholic, example given.
 
Augustinian said:
I think Catholics understand this, and for the most part don’t take offense.

I was thinking more about how to explain it to the non-catholic masses that sometimes attend Masses. If you are attending a Catholic funeral with friends or business associates who aren’t Catholic, example given
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I don’t understand this point. First of all, why would it be difficult to explain? Secondly, at funerals or weddings where there are many non-Catholics, there are typically lots of people not kneeling anyway, so why would anyone even notice that a few Catholics who are elderly or sick do not kneel?
 
Augustinian said:
I was thinking more about how to explain it to the non-catholic masses that sometimes attend Masses. If you are attending a Catholic funeral with friends or business associates who aren’t Catholic, example given.
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I think @Irishmom2 already answered that question:
It’s not really that difficult to explain. We have choices and people are free (at least for now) to choose what works for them because that is what the Church allows. Easy.

“That is what the Church allows.” That says it all, really.
 
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Augustinian said:
Do you really think so? I think that a fair number of people are just seeking order. " If we are all one, let’s show we are all one". Different people kneeling or standing, receiving both kinds or just one, on the tongue or in the hand, it can make it a bit more difficult to explain to those who are unfamiliar.
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“seeking order” to that extreme goes against everything the Vatican has stated. Post the Our Father, when you attend Mass around the world (outside of the United States) you will often see some people kneeling, some standing, and some sitting (all at the same Mass). The Vatican has stated that after the Our Father, it doesn’t matter unless the Bishop has asked the diocese to do something specific.

If you want people to stand in your parish after the Our Father, you don’t need to remove the kneelers to do so.

The only reason to remove the kneelers is to kill kneeling long term in a parish (for everything).

Remember, we kneel for more than just Mass. There is Adoration, Benediction, Stations of the Cross, and other devotions. The people who propose removing kneelers want to end kneeling for all of that too.

This might sound very strong, but the people who want kneelers removed are either (a) uneducated regarding the Catholic Faith or (b) heretics. Because there is not a single good or valid reason to remove kneelers from a Catholic Church.

God Bless
 
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About 20 years ago we went to a wedding of a friend. The wedding was at a very affluent parish, and I noticed they didn’t have kneelers.

I said to my husband that maybe rich people don’t like to kneel. Therefore, they never put in kneelers.
 
Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini in Rome has wood kneelers with pads that can be rotated down onto the kneeler or left up so one can kneel directly on the wood. A very unique church and famous for the crypt beneath the church decorated with the bones and bodies of Capuchin friars.
 
Tendinitis from praying the Rosary is a major drain on many health care systems around the world.
 
i don’t want anyone to stop kneeling

but if it physically painful; and you start to make a spectacle of yourself by doing it; should you continue to do so?

i love the twenty and thirty year olds weighing in on this topic… 😦
 
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