Two memories from my pre-Vatican II childhood that stick with me to this day revolve around kneeling. One is of my father, a man of simple but substantive faith, a man like all men blessed and broken, leaving the church pew, going up to the altar railing (remember those), opening the gate then closing the gate behind him, genuflecting, then making his way to the side of the altar and kneeling to serve Mass because the altar boy hadn’t shown up. I never remember seeing any of my friend’s dads or any other grown man do this, although I’m sure there were those who did. I remember that while I embarrassed easily at that age, this didn’t embarrass me. On the contrary, I felt secretly proud, sensing but not understanding fully that it revealed something profound about my dad, something that ran deeper than his flaws or strengths, insecurities or self-possession, something noble and evocative, a quiet strength and humility that pointed toward reverence worth emulating .

The other memory is of my parents calling my five brothers and sisters and me from our homework (or on weekends from talking to friends on the phone, or outside playing, or watching TV) to gather to pray the rosary. We didn’t do this regularly, though over the year’s of my early childhood it was a regular intermittent practice. Looking back I imagine it was during Lent and at other special times of the liturgical year. It’s not so much the rosary that remains with me (although there was something clandestine and intimate about it), but rather all those kneeling bodies in the living room or crammed into my parent’s bedroom or into my brother’s and my room leaning against beds or love seats or chairs or hassocks. In the dark or dim light, it felt a little catacomb-like minus the fear of being found out. I’ve never been much for saying the rosary with others at church, and it’s not a practice of mine now, but kneeling together as a family in the sanctuary that was a room in our simple home left an indelible impression on me. It’s the kneeling I remember now.

In her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day tells of a similar experience she had when she was a young girl. Running into the house of a Catholic friend and neighbor, Dorothy, whose family was non-church going, suddenly saw her friend’s mother Mrs. Barrett kneeling in prayer in one of the front bedrooms in the late morning. This simple, hidden, unpretentious sign of faith had a lasting impact on Dorothy’s own latent faith. She recounts “I felt a burst of love toward Mrs. Barrett that I have never forgotten, a feeling of gratitude and happiness that warmed my heart.”

Kneeling is somewhat of a lost art, a posture reserved for children’s bedtime rituals, worshipers at Sunday Mass, 9^th inning-two-out drunks, and the proverbial soldier pleading in the trench. But is kneeling only for children, Sunday Mass goers, desperate alcoholics, and terrified soldiers?

Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943, is one of the most fascinating and profound documents to come out of the Nazi holocaust. Comprised of the letters and diaries of a young non-religious Jewish woman from Amsterdam who recorded her daily activities, thoughts, struggles and hopes during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, it is a testament of one woman’s social, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual evolution in the midst of the cruel crucible instigated by Hitler and his minions. All conversions being typically atypical, Etty’s story is no exception. Some of the most moving passages record Etty’s evolving spirituality as embodied in her increasing openness to God and as symbolized in her willingness to struggle against the embarrassment and finally to surrender to the compulsion to drop to her knees to pray. She writes:

. . . now I sometimes actually drop to my knees beside my bed, even on a cold winter night. And I listen in to myself, allow myself to be led, not by anything on the outside, but by what wells up from within. It’s still no more than a beginning, I know. But it is no longer a shaky beginning, it has already taken root.

In an earlier entry, she writes the following:

“Last night, shortly before going to bed, I suddenly went down on my knees in the middle of this large room, between the steel chairs and the matting. Almost automatically. Forced to the ground by something stronger than myself. Some time ago I said to myself, ‘I am a kneeler in training.’”

A kneeler in training — not a bad thing to be. Kneeling — not a bad thing to do. Not a bad apprenticeship to serve. Not a bad posture to assume from time to time or more regularly in a world so fouled by façade, self-aggrandizement, and entitlement, in a moment in history when the world’s poor get poorer and the rich look the other way and get richer, when the bruised become more broken, on a planet increasingly desecrated and so badly in need of reverence and humility from people like us whose greatest gift to God, one another, and the earth might begin by dropping to our knees and — in the words of Vincent Van Gogh — “staying close to the ground.” ♦

REFLECTION: When, if ever, was the last time you knelt to pray? Kneeling is often associated with penitence. But it also is a posture of humility, reverence, awe, surrender, quiet presence, and amazement. Consider finding a time and place to kneel and “listen in to (yourself), allowing (yourself) to be led, not by anything on the outside, but by what wells up from within” (Etty Hillesum).

Artwork: (Top) On Bended Knee, Beverly Klucher (Bottom) Woman in reverent prayer, Rhody Yule