Posture for prayer

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This question has to do with the posture for personal, private prayer. Which posture is better? Kneeling? Sitting? Standing? Some may say that the posture is unimportant, but I’m not so sure about that.

What are your thoughts?🤷
 
The posture that provides you with the least amount of distraction from prayer.

Sitting in a comfortable chair is conducive for most westerners.

If you kneel, but find that you’re attention is constantly draw away from the presence of God, toward the pains in your knees, by all means, sit down.

Jim
 
“Some may say that the posture is unimportant, but I’m not so sure about that.”

ideally the body should be an icon of the soul …

Maybe you would be interested to read this book : “Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition” by Gabriel Bunge
 
Unless your prayer is meant to be penitential assuming a posture that will not distract from prayer is best. This is not just my opinion. The great masters of the soul, such as St. Frances de Sales and Teresa of Avila said the same thing. You may want to light a candle or set up a home shrine in a private place for prayer in order to make it more special and more conducive to prayer. It’s really up to you. 🙂
 
I pray best when I’m working out and hiking. That’s when I do my best personal and private prayer.
 
kalel76 said:
This question has to do with the posture for personal, private prayer. Which posture is better? Kneeling? Sitting? Standing? Some may say that the posture is unimportant, but I’m not so sure about that.

What are your thoughts?🤷
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Don’t let anyone tell you that you must use this or that posture. Prayer is for anytime, anywhere, even if you are sitting in the toilet, having a shower, cooking dinner, etc.
 
kalel76 said:
This question has to do with the posture for personal, private prayer. Which posture is better? Kneeling? Sitting? Standing? Some may say that the posture is unimportant, but I’m not so sure about that.

What are your thoughts?🤷
Click to expand...
Where there is the least distraction…I pray a lot when I’m driving alone. Also, I normally kneel when I pray before I go to bed, because it helps me stay awake. I close my eyes a lot and sometimes plug my ears if I’m experiencing distractions

-Jeanne
 
kalel76 said:
This question has to do with the posture for personal, private prayer. Which posture is better? Kneeling? Sitting? Standing? Some may say that the posture is unimportant, but I’m not so sure about that.

What are your thoughts?🤷
Click to expand...
what posture facilitates your prayer? That is the posture for your prayer at that time.
 
kalel76 said:
This question has to do with the posture for personal, private prayer. Which posture is better? Kneeling? Sitting? Standing? Some may say that the posture is unimportant, but I’m not so sure about that.

What are your thoughts?🤷
Click to expand...
My thoughts are that, at my age, sitting is quite OK. First and formost in my prayer life is the LOTH and, like a lot of religious, I do this sitting down. This means I sometimes have a cat purring in my lap as I do the offices. I think God is happier with the purring cat rather then being concerned with my posture:rolleyes:
 
I pray on my walk to school, and if not I pray in the school before class begins. Outside of school I am mostly kneeling and If I am I do it on a comfortable rug or carpet.
 
For private prayer I mostly stand with hands clasped. I’m pretty fit but my joints are ageing ahead of time and so I keep kneeling for church and night prayers and standing for the rest.
 
I remember reading that St Dominic used not one but NINE different postures for prayer. From this, it seems, we can deduce that there certainly isn’t one right posture for everyone, and probably not even one posture that is going to be right for an individual every single time they pray.
 
Thank you all for the (name removed by moderator)ut. For myself, I think that your posture depends on the “mood” of my prayer. Just like at mass, we pray standing, sitting, and kneeling.
 
I practice Yoga for exercise and found that during the meditative portion of my routine, I can usually recite the rosary or say my daily prayer intentions. I do this in leu of the Yogic Mantras taught in some of the classes. Would this be considered OK since I am taking time to meditate on my prayers and giving them complete, undivided attention, even though it happens to be at the end of a workout?
 
kalel76 said:
This question has to do with the posture for personal, private prayer. Which posture is better? Kneeling? Sitting? Standing? Some may say that the posture is unimportant, but I’m not so sure about that.

What are your thoughts?🤷
Click to expand...
pope Benedict talked about posture during the liturgy in spirit of the liturgy really good stuff I sugest you read it but pretty much the three postures in the mass are used for these reasons

sitting is the best posture when you meditate on the word. notice during the mass the majority of the sitting takes place in the 1st and 2nd reading, and the homily

standing is a posture of victory or Joy or something along those lines, I may have to go back and look this up when i get a chance.

kneeling is a posture that shows that you are nothing next to God that you lay down your will towards God. He talks about how when Chirst went to pray he was mostly no his knees.

its been a while since I’ve read it so I may be slightly off on a couple of these post.

But when it comes to personal prayer I think posture is very important, but again as other posters have said don’t be in a position that will distract you, but also don’t be in a position where your prayer may not be the best it can be. I think the best posture for prayer is kneeling then standing then sitting, other forms are ok to but you should always stive to be in the best posture as you can be without being distracted.
 
kalel76 said:
This question has to do with the posture for personal, private prayer. Which posture is better? Kneeling? Sitting? Standing? Some may say that the posture is unimportant, but I’m not so sure about that.

What are your thoughts?🤷
Click to expand...
ALL of the above. 🙂

(posture is important…and all of the above are very good)
 
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