Getting rid of kneelers

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I haven’t seen this trend at all. If anything the opposite. 1970-ish hideous parishes with carpet and chairs refurbished to have pews, kneelers, and bare glorious floors. Didn’t realize it was going back to the 70s in some locales!
 
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phil19034 said:
I have bad knees, esp my right knee which has gotten worse from genuflecting
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I had been bracing myself against the pew to genuflect for years, and resting my backside against the seat to bear my weight when kneeling in the pew.

My knees are so much better since joining a Byzantine parish (kneeling is prohibited on Sundays, per the counsel of Nice).

hawk

p.s. We went to RC Mass a few months ago in Laughlin while there for the weekend. One of the hotels donates a showroom for 3 or 4 Masses a weekend. It isn’t quite possible to kneel in a booth in a showroom . . .
 
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brian_custer said:
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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If it pains you to kneel, you don’t have to.

I have bad knees, and I kneel as much as possible. When I can’t, I don’t think twice about resting my behind on the pew or completely sitting down.

But I strongly object to parishes removing kneeling on my behalf. If a parish wants to do something for people with bad knees, then invest in wider kneelers with very thick, foam padding.

God Bless
 
brian_custer said:
i love the twenty and thirty year olds weighing in on this topic… 😦
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I’m not in my twenties or thirties any more, but I was 23 and serving in the Army when I was first diagnosed with osteoarthritis in both knees and patella-femoral syndrome. It doesn’t usually prevent me from kneeling, but some days are worse than others.
 
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Was just at the Basilica in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador for Mass this morning before catching a flight home.

The aisles and the sanctuary are carpeted, the pew areas aren’t. Kneelers are a type I’ve only ever seen here. Rather than loose, or attached to a pew, they are attached to the floor and can be put up out of the way. This church dates back to 1855.
 
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We get a LOT of young Airmen and soldiers (I’m an active duty RN on a joint base) that are “broken”. Especially Air Force aircraft maintainers, the Air Force cops, and the Army/USAF Special Forces/FORSCOM folks.

At Mass on base I see a lot of “young” people either opting not to kneel or not kneeling for a prolonged period. I’m 44 and my knees are also just about shot, but I’ve seen X-rays and MRIs of people young enough to be my kids that make me shudder and thank God for my good fortune.
 
It really depends on the parish as well. When I went to Mass that was held in a beautiful college chapel (no kneelers, as it was not a catholic college or chapel), most of us knelt on the floor.

That said, there were some interesting incidents from that. Kneelers provide more space between your knees and the various creepy-crawlies that manage to get in.
 
DarkLight said:
It really depends on the parish as well. When I went to Mass that was held in a beautiful college chapel (no kneelers, as it was not a catholic college or chapel), most of us knelt on the floor.
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My parish (Byzantine) doesn’t have kneelers. We don’t typically kneel during the Divine Liturgy, but during Lent we have services that involve a considerable amount of kneeling and prostrations. We kneel on the floor and those who can’t kneel dont. But almost everyone does, including a good number of rather elderly parishioners.
 
babochka said:
My parish (Byzantine) doesn’t have kneelers.
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A few years ago, I saw a great description of a a priest meeting with the Byzanteens group in his parish. He explained that the pews (let alone kneelers) really didn’t belong there . . . and had to restrain them as they started dashing off to find tools to remove them! 🙂 . . .

hawk
 
greenrangerx said:
The guy kneeling next to me complained that it was starting to hurt his back. Monsignor told him “consider it part of your penance.” I still don’t know if that was a joke or not.
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We Catholics like to haze our new initiates! 😎
 
dochawk said:
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babochka:
My parish (Byzantine) doesn’t have kneelers.
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A few years ago, I saw a great description of a a priest meeting with the Byzanteens group in his parish. He explained that the pews (let alone kneelers) really didn’t belong there . . . and had to restrain them as they started dashing off to find tools to remove them! 🙂 . . .

hawk
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Yeah, I like my pews… or at least chairs. It keeps little ones nicely contained. When I was a kid, our parish took the pews out from Easter to Pentecost. When I returned to the Byzantine Church after a very long absence, I waited until after Pentecost because I had these childhood memories of agonizingly long liturgies and standing FOREVER. Now, I regret that I missed Pascha that year and my children are building similar memories o agonizingly long liturgies and standing FOREVER. Except for this year. 😦 The flu finally caught us and we’re missing out on the Holy Week liturgies. I’m still healthy, but only two of us remain standing.
 
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Some advice: before attaching sinister motives to the removal of your parish’s kneelers, actually talk to the people who are ordering them out. You’ll understand them, and if they’re out of line you might respectfully straighten them out.
 
“nothing annoys me more than seeing someone lounging on a pew with their feet propped up on a kneeler.”
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I do this all the time and FYI it’s not from rudeness, it’s because I’m a bigger person and a lot of churches have really shallow pews so I have to either have my leg muscles really tense all through Mass, which is uncomfortable to the point of painful, or I can prop my feet up on a kneeler. I can’t speak for everyone who does this of course, but you can’t make an informed judgement on the validity of their reasoning.
 
I have to say I doubt God cares if one is kneeling, sitting, or standing. These are human considerations. God would be happy that one is there and praying. I am not saying kneelers should be removed. It is always nice to have a choice. I read all the posts here, though, and it seems to me way too much emphasis and concern is placed on the issue of to kneel or not.
 
An orthopaedic surgeon I read about was Catholic himself and said jokingly (although knee replacements are a serious issue of course and he wasn’t downplaying that) Catholics are his best “customers” because of the amount of time they have spent kneeling in their years here on Earth.

Have a blessed Easter!~
 
I respectfully disagree. To say that God does not care about any of our actions is an insult against his omnipotence. God cares about every little detail in our lives.
On a more specific level, as for kneeling, standing, sitting, etc during certain prayers, Jesis said we must make ourselves as children, ie we must be humble. Our Western cultural traditions, gong back many centuries gives us kneeling as a outward display of humility. Not just our thoughts, but actions are important to God during prayer, our body is part of our humanity, so it would be wrong to say that an outward display of humility is not important.
Also, God cares about obedience, and here in the US, the Bishops give us explicit instructions on when we should kneeling at mass.
 
We have a different view of what we think is important to God, I guess.
 
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