…why Catholics pray kneeling?
Considered barbarian behaviour and despised by Greco-Latin culture, genuflection had little value in antiquity. The aversion is not hard to understand: how could one kneel before pagan deities, capricious beings from whom one sought sympathy only to obtain certain personal benefits? Men would demean themselves – and they knew it – at the feet of these pieces of stone, wood or metal.
Only the people who knew the true God could conceive of the most fitting position in which to worship Him. In fact, in kneeling – a custom from Israelite culture – a theological vision is condensed: the knees, which support the weight of the whole body, symbolize strength; therefore, bending them meant humbling oneself before the living God and recognizing that our everything is nothing without Him.
As the heir of the Old Covenant, the New Testament refers to kneeling fifty-nine times. Of these, the most sublime episode is the one St. Luke mentions when he recounts Our Lord’s agony in the Garden of Olives: “and [He] knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me’” (Lk 22:41-42).
The custom of kneeling, assimilated by Christians from the first centuries, continues today. However, it is very likely that this position is not in line with the egalitarian sophistry preached in the contemporary world because, as humanity deviates from the true Faith, kneeling becomes incomprehensible.
Since this is the ideal posture for prayer, the Holy Church prescribes that the faithful should always kneel before the Blessed Sacrament, unless there is a reasonable reason for not doing so, and during Mass at the moment of the Consecration (cf. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, n.43; 274).
Those who place themselves in a state of reverence before the Supreme Good will be great in God’s eyes! ◊
…why the figure of a fish is a symbol of Our Lord Jesus Christ?
In Paradise, Adam gave each animal a name according to its particular role in creation (cf. Gn 2:19). But our first father probably did not even suspect that several of those living beings would become symbols of the New Adam.
In fact, Jesus Christ is the Lion of Judah in driving the peddlers out of the Temple and the Lamb slain on Calvary. In His own words, He resembles the hen who gathers the scattered chicks under her wings (cf. Mt 23:37) and the serpent lifted up in the desert for the salvation of the Hebrews (cf. Jn 3:14). Moreover, the piety of the faithful has associated Him with the pelican in the Eucharist and… with a fish.
But what is the similarity between a fish and the God-Man?
In the first centuries of Christianity, due to the bloody persecutions that were raging, Catholics needed to hide their status, practising their religion in secret, to the point of having to celebrate Mass in the catacombs. In this underground life, they began to create codes and signs by which to identify each other.
These figures had to be absolutely indecipherable. And the fish was a great find, since even today many people do not know how to interpret its meaning.
In Greek, a language in common use at the time, fish is spelt ikhthýs. These are the initials of the words Iesoûs Khristòs Theoû Huiòs Sotér – Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, when written in Greek characters.
Thus, at the time of the catacombs, this seemingly innocuous aquatic animal became a symbol of Christ and a sign of identification for His followers. ◊
