Every
person who understands that he is God’s creature will humbly recognize the
Almighty and adore him. Christian adoration, however, sees not only the
greatness, omnipotence, and →HOLINESS of God. It also kneels
before the divine Love that became man in Jesus Christ.
Someone who really adores
God kneels down before him or prostrates himself on the ground. This gives
expression to the truth about the relation between man and God: He is great and
we are little. At the same time, man is never greater than when he freely and
devoutly kneels down before God. The unbeliever who is seeking God and is
beginning to pray can find God in this way.
Every day, at sunrise and
sunset, believers renew their “adoration” or acknowledgment of the presence of
God, Creator and Lord of the Universe. This recognition is full of gratitude
that wells up from the depths of their heart and floods their entire being, for
it is only by adoring and loving God above all things that human beings can
totally fulfill themselves.
POPE BENEDICT XVI,
August 7, 2005
Why
should we petition God?
God,
who knows us through and through, knows what we need. Nevertheless, God wants
us to ask, to turn to him in times of need, to cry out, implore, lament, call
upon him, indeed, even to struggle with him in prayer. [2629-2933]
Certainly God does not need
our petitions in order to help us. It is for our own sake that we are supposed
to offer prayers of petition. Someone who does not ask and does not want to ask
shuts himself up in himself. Only a person who asks opens himself and turns to
the Author of all good.
Someone who asks goes back
home to God. Thus the prayer of petition brings man into the right relationship
to God, who respects our freedom.
What do
Christians express by prayer postures?
Christians
bring their life before God through the language of the body: They cast
themselves down before God. They fold their hands in prayer or stretch them out
(the Orante position).
They
genuflect (bend the knee) or kneel before the All-Holy God. They listen to the
Gospel while standing. They meditate while seated.
Standing
in the presence of God expresses reverence (you stand up when a
superior enters) and also vigilance and readiness (you are ready to set out on
a journey immediately). If at the same time the hands are outstretched in
praise of God (the Orante position), the person praying assumes the original gesture
of praise.
While sitting
in God’s presence, the Christian listens to what is happening
interiorly; he ponders the Word in his heart (Lk 2:51) and meditates on it.
By kneeling, a
person makes himself small in the presence of God’s greatness. He recognizes
his dependence on God’s grace.
By prostrating
himself, a person adores God.
By folding
the hands, a person overcomes distraction, “recollects himself” (gathers
his thoughts) and unites himself to God. Folded hands are also the original
gesture of petition.
The bended knee and
outstretched, empty hands are the two primordial gestures of a free human
being.
FR. ALFRED DELP, S.J.
(1907-1945)
I believe that you
understand a church only when you kneel in it.
REINHOLD SCHNEIDER
(1903-1958)
But Jacob said, “I will not
let you go, unless you bless me.”
Gen 32:27
Our dear God loves to be
bothered.
ST. JOHN VIANNEY
(1786-1859)
O man, you are a poor
creature who must ask God for everything.
ST. JOHN VIANNEY
(1786-1859)
. . . Christ Jesus, who
died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who
indeed intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Rom 8:34-35
No comments:
Post a Comment