QSitting, standing and kneeling are all postures in the Catholic Mass. Do these postures have specific meanings and where did they come from?

A The origin of most of these symbolic gestures that are integral to Catholic worship — a wordless liturgical language — is, in many cases, lost in history. A basic vocabulary would include genuflecting toward the altar and tabernacle, bowing the head at the name of Jesus and when the names of the Trinity are pronounced (as in the Doxology, or “Glory be…”), along with bowing toward the crucifix, striking the breast and making the sign of the cross.

They do have meaning and significance as powerful signs of worship even if the way this happens is only dimly understood.

The postures we use in the liturgy are set by the individual Bishops’ Conference usually and are more or less the same throughout the world and of course, each one has special meaning.  

The Church’s great liturgical tradition teaches us that fruitful participation in the liturgy requires that one be personally conformed to the mystery being celebrated, offering one’s life to God in unity with the sacrifice of Christ for the salvation of the whole world. For this reason, the Synod of Bishops asked that the faithful be helped to make their interior dispositions correspond to their gestures and words.

One stands because that is the way we pray officially. We sit for the Old Testament and the New Testament readings and stand for the Gospel out of respect for the biography of our Lord, Jesus Christ. And then, of course, we sit for the silent parts of the offertory then kneel for the consecration, canon and stand for the Our Father and kneel for Communion, then sit for the ending reflection and prayer and Mass and stand for the final blessing.

We make the sign of the cross before we pray to collect and compose ourselves and to fix our minds and hearts and wills upon God. We make it again when we finish praying in order that we may hold fast the gift we have received from God.

The gesture of striking the breast expresses sorrow, unworthiness, extreme humility. For Christians, this ritual gesture expresses our contrition, our sense of sinfulness and unworthiness before God.

Kneeling is an almost universal ritual gesture of homage, honor, reverence, prayer obedience, petition and worship. There are many, many biblical references to kneeling in both the Old and New Testaments kneeling has from time immemorial been a customary ritual posture in both public and private worship.

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