Why should I genuflect in church?
If we were granted an audience with some high-ranking person, how carefully we would mind our behavior and manners! We have an audience with Jesus every day, an intimate personal conversation leading up to the total union of sacramental Communion. How do we receive him? How do we care for the basic details of piety?
“Piety has its own good manners -Learn them. What a pity to see those "pious" people who don't know how to behave in Mass or how to make the sign of the Cross (they make weird gestures, all in a hurry), or how to bend the knee before the Tabernacle (their ridiculous genuflections seem a mockery), or how to bow their heads reverently before a picture of our Lady."
Genuflection is a gesture of adoration reserved for the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Cross. It signifies the adoration owed to Christ truly present in the Eucharistic.
We must know the reason why genuflection was established, its meaning, and form of doing it. Thus, take into account:
1. Genuflection
The word genuflection comes from the medieval Latin genuflexĭo: gĕnu (knee) and flexĭo (flexion). It is done by bending the right knee to the ground.
It was a sign of respect, in the West, given to kings and nobles during the Middle Ages. However, they were respected by bending the left knee. This is why Christians bend the right knee as a sign of devotion to God alone.
2. Single or double genuflection?
In the past, Catholics genuflected with two knees before the exposed Blessed Sacrament. Thus, they bent the right knee until it touched the ground and then the left knee. The person then stood up, raising the left knee first.
Presently, we are told that only simple genuflection is needed before the Blessed Sacrament, whether reserved in the tabernacle or exposed for public adoration, except when in a procession.
Thus, double genuflection is not obligatory in an exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, but many continue to practice it out of personal devotion.
3. At what other times do we genuflect?
Genuflection is made when entering and leaving the church, always facing the tabernacle, to greet and bid farewell to Christ the Eucharist.
The way to know that ‘the presence of Christ’ in the tabernacle is when the vigil lamp is lit at the side.
Genuflection before the Cross is only performed ‘from the solemn adoration in the liturgical action of Good Friday at the Passion of the Lord until the beginning of the Easter Vigil’.
4. Does genuflection pleases the Lord?
St. Ambrose, one of the greatest Doctors of the Church, said: ‘When the knee is bent, the offence to the Lord is eased, His anger is appeased, His grace is brought forth’.
Therefore, the gesture of genuflection is a beautiful way to express our faith in the Eucharistic presence of Christ and our love for Him.
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