Postures for Prayer & Worship

Why don't we kneel to pray any longer?

Anglicans once were very clear as to their posture in services of worship. They stood as the Clergy entered and departed, to hear the Gospel in the Order for Holy Communion, to say the Creed, and to sing the lesser Gloria, Psalms, Hymns and Canticles. They sat to hear the Lessons read, the notices given and the homily preached. They knelt down to pray and to receive the Blessing.

The clergy had similar but not identical rules for at times they stood as they faced the seated people to speak to them.

These basic rules which became habits did have a theory behind them. A bodily posture united with an interior disposition expressed the relation of the whole person to God in the act of worship. Standing implied respect and reverence; sitting reflective hearing and meditation, and kneeling, humility and reverence.

Since the 1960s the old rules have seemingly gone and local churches make their own rules. It is somewhat confusing to many of us! our interior dispositions sometimes are all churned up and confused!

If we examine the Bible and survey the history of the Church we note that there are four basic postures for worship - standing, sitting, kneeling and lying prostrate. Then also there are relational positions and gestures - e.g., facing East by the Celebrant and by all for the Creed & facing the congregation by the Minister when speaking to it, and making the sign of the Cross & laying on of hands.

STANDING implies respect and can also imply attentiveness and readiness. In the Bible and in the life of the primitive Church there are many examples of people standing to hear the Word of God and to pray. In particular, the early Christians stood to pray in the Easter season as a joyful sign of celebration of the Resurrection.

KNEELING implies humility before the Adored One by the adoring. There are examples of kneeling to pray in the OT & NT (Jesus knelt - Lk 22:41f). In the early Church kneeling was closely associated with penitence and fasting and thus was not permitted or recommended in the Easter season.

SITTING was uncommon in synagogue and church except for the case of the leaders - e.g. the seat of the bishop and other seats for the presbyters. Yet sitting in worship by the whole assembly (a late development in the history of the Church) can be seen as listening with attention and meditating with intention (cf. Lk 10:39).

PROSTRATION implies total submission to One who has complete authority and has been used for specific purposes - e.g., the submission of candidates for Baptism and candidates for Ordination and on Good Friday by the faithful.

The biggest change that Anglicans & Roman Catholics have faced since the 1960s is the removal of the kneelers (hassocks) and the call from the clergy to stand for prayer - or for most prayer. The basic reason for this is a change in perception of what is happening in the Eucharist.

Now the sense is that we are the joyful people of God who stand in his presence as his forgiven and adopted children and we celebrate who we are by his grace and what he is to us. Thus we are respectful of him but not over conscious of our sins for we are a Resurrection people. So we stand!

The older, pre-1970s sense (inculcated by the old Roman Mass and the classic BCP service of HC), is of a congregation of forgiven sinners approaching the Lord's Table in penitence and humility, celebrating the fact of Redemption and of their union with the crucified and now exalted Saviour. So we kneel.

Of course the main thing is that we are there to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth and in the beauty of holiness. Interior disposition and bodily action must be united. We assemble as the people of God, who are pilgrims and sojourners in this world and age, who are being saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and who look for the redemption of body and soul and full attendance at the heavenly Banquet of the kingdom of God of the age to come.

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon
Minister of Christ Church, Biddulph Moor,
England & Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large
of The Prayer Book Society of America