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YoungTradCath
Guest
Capitalizing your words doesn’t make your post more effective. In fact, it makes it seem like an attack. Posts like this aren’t going to get people to agree with you. You can’t persuade with spite. People don’t like other people who come across like this. Just letting you know.Dropping to your knees, while people stand behind you, has NOTHING to do with reverence, and EVERYTHING to do with calling attention to YOU! YOU are attempting to show that YOU are more reverent, more pious, than all of the other people.
It identifies YOU as a Pharisee, one that has to publicly show how pious they are, but in reality are not following the rules of God at all. EXACTLY the kind of behavior that our Lord directly condemned.
For those that claim that receiving on their knees is more reverent, what position is the Priest in when HE receives Communion? If there are Con-Celebrants, what position are THEY in when THEY receive communion? They are STANDING.
If standing is less reverent, WHY DOES EVERY PRIEST IN THE WORLD RECEIVE THE EUCHARIST WHILE STANDING, WHEN THEY CELEBRATE THE MASS?
Also, labeling someone as a “Pharisee” when you have no right to do so just makes you seem like a very hateful person. I shall remind you that you have no privilege to judge people who wish to receive kneeling. I’m sure that people who receive kneeling really don’t even care what other people think when they see them receiving kneeling, and I’m sure that kneeling people don’t do it to impress anyone. Our times nowadays are different than Christ’s time. Back then, religion was ingrained in to every aspect of life. So, doing “holier-than-thou” things like praying in public loudly could plausibly have been done to increase one’s standing in society, or to gain favor with others. As religion has changed and society has also, people are judged on their performance and their abilities, and not usually by their religious beliefs (at least in developed nations). If kneeling to God was done to impress other people back in Christ’s time, it is done now to show reverence to God and to worship Him. It’s still very possible to “wow” people with religion just to gain social or economic advantage. Look at televangelists. But when a Catholic kneels to the real body of Christ, he is not doing so because he cares to impress anyone.
As to why priests receive while standing, I have no idea on a real doctrinal level. But think of it like this. When a person receives from a priest while standing, he is receiving from the priest who is in persona Christi. When he receives communion himself, he is receiving in persona Christi also, and though it is physically being transported by his hand, he is still receiving from Christ. So, perhaps the priest stands to receive to preserve the dignity of being a vessel in persona Christi. It would look perhaps a little weird and maybe be a little disrespectful for the priest to kneel while Christ is using the priest’s body as an instrument.