KNEELING

Kneeling: translation

The most fitting posture in which prayer is to be offered to God. Our blessed Lord Himself by His own example has taught us this. In regard to kneeling in Public Worship, the Annotated Prayer Book has this note: "The gesture of kneeling is not only a mark of personal humility and reverence, but also one of those acts required of every one as an individual component part of the body which forms the congregation. To neglect it, is to neglect a duty which is owing to God and man in this respect as well as the other. We have no right to conspicuous private gestures in a public devotional assembly; nor are the gestures which we use (in conformity to the rules of the Church) to be necessarily interpreted as hypocritical because our personal habits or feelings may not be entirely consistent with them. As the Clergy have an official duty in Church, irrespective of their personal characters, so also have the Laity. It may be added that a respectful conformity to rules enjoining such official duties, may often lead onward to true personal reverence and holiness."