Don’t just nod at the God who Made Us

From I Wakefield, Cape Town

It seems to be an in-thing in the Catholic Church to nod at the Body of Christ in the Eucharist or the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle rather than to genuflect or kneel before it.

Fr Richard Rohr OFM in a recent article on reconstruction wrote: I do not want to live in a world where there is No One to adore. It is a lonely and laboured world if I am its centre”.

I do not want to belong to a religion which cannot kneel.

Fr Teilhard de Chardin SJ said that we reach moral adulthood on the day when we realise that we have but one choice on this earth, to genuflect to something beyond and above us or to begin to self-destruct.

It is more acceptable in some instances to bow before the Body of Christ than it is to nod at it, but it should never take the place of genuflecting or kneeling.

I have noticed that this nodding is catching on fast. It is quick, convenient (and perfect for the lazy), and the young people especially seem to prefer it.

I am orthodox in my thinking, but it breaks my heart when I see young people giving a perfunctory nod or quick bow of the shoulders to acknowledge and adore their God.

There are few gestures as powerful as that of bending the knee before the God who made us.

Kneeling is to have power.