CNS STORY: Vatican official: Kneeling expresses meeting Jesus in the Eucharist

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Kneeling during the consecration at Mass is the most appropriate way to express the fact that in the Eucharist one meets Jesus, who was bowed down by the weight of human sin, said an article by a Vatican official.

'The Lord lowered himself to the point of death on the cross in order to encounter sinful man, freeing him from sin,' said the brief article published in 'Notitiae,' the bulletin of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

'If the Eucharist represents the sacramental memorial of the death and resurrection of the Lord, it seems appropriate that those for whom the Lord bowed himself down would bow down before this supreme mystery of love,' said the article by Msgr. Stephan Hunseler, a congregation official from Germany.

The late-July article said that Christ's self-emptying 'reaches its climax when the lord Jesus Christ takes on himself, as the lamb of God, all the sins of the world.'

When people kneel during the consecration, it said, they not only are assuming a position of humility, but are bowing down to meet Jesus where Jesus has bowed down to meet them.

'Kneeling during the consecration of the Eucharist, therefore, becomes one of the most eloquent moments of meeting Christ the lord,' who became man, died for people's sins and rose again, the article said."

Original: CNS STORY: Vatican official: Kneeling expresses meeting Jesus in the Eucharist