Kneelers in Church - a rant

[catholicrocks]

when I was in Catholic school lo these many moons ago we actually practiced in church lifting and replacing the kneelers silently and were disciplined if we banged kneelers–don’t know of the reason was noise or preserving our new church and fixtures. my dad would also glare if we banged (or put our posterior on the pew, that earned a crack)

I actually do practice with our jr & sr hi students, replacing the kneelers silently, closing the doors silently (ours bang loudly if left to shut on their own) and of course genuflecting properly

and why do people lift the kneeler up after the Amen for the OF, when they are just going to lower them in a minute for the fraction?

Thank you, puzzleannie! It’s a pet peeve of mine simply because of my Catholic school and hardcore Catholic mother’s upbringing in the 1980s-1990s. You better believe that if we made a sound with the kneelers during Mass, we’d be practicing after Mass until you could hear a pin drop! So, I am fully aware that it can, in fact, be done in total silence.

Certainly, I understand that there are accidents with dropping them and children slamming them, but that collective slamming and banging every single time is out of control in my opinion. I know it’s not intentional and that people don’t think about it, so I’m not condemning them or anything, but I wish someone had taught them/would teach them to be more conscious of it, that’s all. My husband does lift the kneeler during Mass which drives me nuts b/c I have always left it down throughout, but he’s a big guy and can’t maneuver around it. We just move the kneeler quietly every time.

 

[Joan_M]

Why do people need to move the kneelers at all? In most of the churches I have been to the kneelers cannot move. They are fixed.

The one I go to now has kneelers that can move, but no one moves them. The only time I have seen them up was after the cleaners had put them up to clean the church and forgot to put them all down again.

If the pews are too close together perhaps it is necessary that they be movable, but with proper placing of pews there is no need whatever.

 

[rpp]

when I was in Catholic school lo these many moons ago we actually practiced in church lifting and replacing the kneelers silently and were disciplined if we banged kneelers–don’t know of the reason was noise or preserving our new church and fixtures. my dad would also glare if we banged (or put our posterior on the pew, that earned a crack)

I have one very bad knee. As I write this I am awaiting a call back from my doctor regarding surgery number 5 on it. I have to take some weight off my knee by resting my behind on the pew. I do wish I did not have to do that, but kneeling is so painful for me.

I actually do practice with our jr & sr hi students, replacing the kneelers silently, closing the doors silently (ours bang loudly if left to shut on their own) and of course genuflecting properly

and why do people lift the kneeler up after the Amen for the OF, when they are just going to lower them in a minute for the fraction?

Perhaps they are from a parish or diocese (like mine) where we are forbidden from kneeling for the Fraction Rite, we only kneel during the Consecration and after receiving.

 

[kristie_m]

This thread cracks me up. I wish we had kneelers in our church. I’d trade the noise for the opportunity to kneel during the consecration. It just seems so much more reverent to me than standing. Seems to me that’s the posture I ought to be in when in the presence of Christ…but my that linoleum is hard on the knees!

 

[lizaanne]

We (quietly!) place the kneeler in position as soon as we enter the pew, and it stays down until people are moving for communion. It doesn’t seem difficult.

That’s lovely if you are in a Church that is new enough to have the space in the pew to allow this. Some Churches are so old that there is hardly enough room to kneel at all without your butt hitting the seat behind you, not to mention having ANYWHERE to put your feet if the kneeler is down.

I would love to leave it down through the entire Mass - if only I had somewhere to put my feet without breaking my ankles every time I stand up.

And putting feet on the flipped down kneeler is NOT AN OPTION!! My gosh - would someone put their shoes up on someone’s couch if they went to their house? It’s furnature - feet do NOT belong on the padded part of the kneeler!!! Yep - that’s a soap box of mine.

~Liza

 

[rpp]

And putting feet on the flipped down kneeler is NOT AN OPTION!! My gosh - would someone put their shoes up on someone’s couch if they went to their house? It’s furnature - feet do NOT belong on the padded part of the kneeler!!! Yep - that’s a soap box of mine.

~Liza

I see so many parents allowing their children to do this, especially here in Oregon where it rains 8 months of the year (no exaggeration!). I often see shorter people use the kneeler as a footrest or ottoman when seated. More than once I have knelt down only to have discover the kneeler is wet or stand back up and see that I have soiled pants. Quite distracting.

 

[catholic79]

rpp - prayers for your knee, I have had surgery on both of mine and need the pew to help when kneeling sometimes too especially on these cold winter days or rainy days.

As for the sound of the kneelers - when you hear the noises say a little prayer that your church has kneelers and uses them, and a prayer for those at churches were they don’t have or are asked not to use the kneelers. And it can be done quietly (no sound at all) we would stay after mass and practice untill we did it if we let one drop during mass.

Liza - Can I join you on your soap box about feet on the kneelers - and add people who let their children stand/walk on the fabric covered pews!!!

Story about kneelers when my DH younger brother was about 2 he managed to get his hand under the kneeler and the whole family knelt on it. The sound of the kneelers was not what people were talking about after that mass! (his hand was fine after a few days BTW)

Mary

 

[rpp]

rpp - prayers for your knee, I have had surgery on both of mine and need the pew to help when kneeling sometimes too especially on these cold winter days or rainy days.

Thank you.

{snip}

Liza - Can I join you on your soap box about feet on the kneelers - and add people who let their children stand/walk on the fabric covered pews!!!

Story about kneelers when my DH younger brother was about 2 he managed to get his hand under the kneeler and the whole family knelt on it. The sound of the kneelers was not what people were talking about after that mass! (his hand was fine after a few days BTW)

Mary

http://bestsmileys.com/scared/4.gif

http://bestsmileys.com/darwin/2.gif

 

[ElizabethPH]

Reminds me of a story. I went to Mass at Westminster Cathedral in London and they have individual kneeler’s that slide out in an odd fashion that I couldn’t figure out; it made such a loud bang that echoed through the church and gave everyone a huge scare. I turned all sorts of red and on top of it upon going to Communion the kneeler wouldn’t slide back…I think I broke it! Anyway just a fond memory I have of a trip there; although an embarrassing one.

 

[lizaanne]

Ok - my kneeler story…

I was walking back from receiving Holy Communion, and was moving pretty fast getting into the pew. I foot SLAMMED into the little foot of the kneeler, and I thought I kicked (VERY VERY HARD) the man who was kneeling. I shreeked - wayyyy too loudly OH MY GOD, ARE YOU OK??!

Yep - Jesus still in my mouth and everything.

He looked at me like I was a loon, because I hadn’t even touched him. But I did end up breaking the kneeler, and seriously injuring my shoe and bruising my foot. And totally embarassing myself in the process.

Lesson learned - slooooooooooow down. And I have done, and never seemed to have that problem again. Sheesh.

~Liza

 

[Fred_4]

That’s lovely if you are in a Church that is new enough to have the space in the pew to allow this. Some Churches are so old that there is hardly enough room to kneel at all without your butt hitting the seat behind you, not to mention having ANYWHERE to put your feet if the kneeler is down.

~Liza

Actually, the church I attend is over 100 years old and has pew spacing like you describe. We manage.

 

[Guitar]

Reminds me of a story. I went to Mass at Westminster Cathedral in London and they have individual kneeler’s that slide out in an odd fashion that I couldn’t figure out; it made such a loud bang that echoed through the church and gave everyone a huge scare. I turned all sorts of red and on top of it upon going to Communion the kneeler wouldn’t slide back…I think I broke it! Anyway just a fond memory I have of a trip there; although an embarrassing one.

I don’t remember tangling with the kneelers there but I do remember the almighty din created by several hundred in the nave getting up off the free-standing chairs to go to communion and scrrrraaaaaping them across the floor as they did so - what a reverence-inspiring experience that was! People made no attempt at all to do it quietly.

Mind you, I’d been awake for nearly 40 hours at that stage (thanks to a long two-stage flight that began in the evening), had collapsed during the Rosary I attempted to say before Mass. so I wasn’t real “with it” and was thoroughly jangled by an organist who should have GONE HOME and left the very capable cantor to DO HER JOB thank you very much without him CRASHING IN ON FULL ORGAN everytime she tried to lead us in the Gregorian chant which DIDN’T NEED ORGAN ANYWAY THANK YOU VERY MUCH, ESPECIALLY NOT FULL DIAPASON CHORUS PLUS MIXTURES FOR EVERY SINGLE ITEM. Even the cantor nearly hit the roof every time he came in.

(This is a rant thread isn’t it? I love Westminster Cathedral, though.)

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

It wakes up those who are still sleeping from the homily.

Yay, MrS!

I am sure this annoys you, Fred (OP), but if you read some of the other things with which people have to put up, plunking kneelers seems so tiny by comparison!!

And as others have said, at least you get to use your kneelers! There are parishes where the congregation is guilted into standing throughout the consecration.

 

[KatieD]

I do remember the sound of kneelers hitting the floor when I was growing up - it is pretty noisy - and I wish I could hear them again at my parish, which has no kneelers. (I believe our new pastor will one day have them installed.) I went to Mass at my childhood parish the other day, and it felt so good to be able to kneel on an actual kneeler!

 

[drafdog]

Yeah, Fred it was always this way. I have six decades of witness to the fact. It was no different when the Mass was celebrated in Latin, so you can’t blame it on Novus Ordo, or the vernacular. I remember developing a deft foot for flipping the kneeler up or down with a minimum of sound. Even so, I was not always as quiet as I might have been.
My current parish church has no kneelers so we are saved the cacophony of repositioning them. We all stand in reverent prayer during canon much as our Jewish brethren (including Reb Jeshua, and his friends Simon, Andrew, John, et al.) pray in the synogogue.

Matthew

 

[tjfitz]

I find the kneeler up and down banging very annoying and distracting.

In my parish church there have been kneelers at least as long as I have been in the city (35 years). When we first arrived in the parish, the kneelers stayed down during the entire Mass except during the to and from at Communion. As time went on and the liturgy changed, I began noticing that the kneelers were banged up as soon as people would arrive for Mass and after they had knelt for a few moments of prayer.

Then they sit and most of the women cross their legs and fold their arms.

When it is time to kneel during the Mass, the kneelers bang down and as soon as we stand or sit, they bang up again.

After the return from Communion, the kneelers bang down, and as soon as the celebrant priest sits, the whole congregation sits down, except for the people who were near the end of the communicant line and are still kneeling in prayer (the person in the pew directly in front, of course, is sitting so the kneeling communicant has to maneuver so as not to bump into that person). As soon as the late communicants sit, there is another salvo of bangs as their kneelers go up.

God forgive me, sometimes I put my feet on the kneeler to keep it down or jam a foot against a kneeler support so it isn’t easy to move it up.

 

[AMDGtoo]

You know, the noise doesn’t have to be. The kneeler can be positioned quietly by hand (not allowed to drop or to be kicked up.)

 

[Cat]

I, and most of you, too, are human beings. Am I correct here?

We slip. We trip. We cough and sneeze and belch and sometimes, heavens forbid, we fart.

Our knees and hips and shoulders and wrists hurt, so we wriggle about in our pew trying to find a position that doesn’t hurt us. We try leaving the kneeler down, but it hurts, so we put it up and down.

We drop the kneeler. Our children drop the kneeler, sometimes even on purpose because they are little children and like the loud boom and because of their immature child-brain, don’t quite comprehend yet that it annoys another people to the point where they actually have to start a thread on CAF to complain about it.

Honestly, this thread just makes me ill. I refuse to apologize for being created a frail and clumsy human being with a body that doesn’t always do what I want it to do, and if some of you can’t handle that your fellow human beings aren’t perfect, well, then why don’t you…well, I don’t know what to tell you to do. Stay away from me. Get real and wait until you get to heaven to start expecting etherealness from yourselve and from everyone around you.

Sorry to be so crabby. I just find this thread and some of the posts sickening and judgemental.

If it annoys you that much, leave it at the altar with Jesus and ask HIM to convict those awful people who can’t seem to go to Mass without making some kind of distracting noise.

 

[reff]

Honestly I like the kneeler noise. It’s the sound of everyone bowing to the miracle of the Consecration. Plus it’s just something I’m used to hearing after the Sanctus ends.

 

[Ruthie]

I don’t mind the noise too much.

But I’ve learned to watch my toes - I’ve been slammed by a neighbor’s kneeler once!

Ruthie