Leaving aside those who physically cannot genuflect, or cannot do so without great difficulty, we start here by addressing the spectacle of strange genuflections. Everyone has seen these strange genuflections (if we can even call them that) in church, such as those of the head-bob variety (also known as pigeon head-bobs) and those of the half-way variety (also known as calf muscle stretches). However, has anyone ever seen a backwards genuflection?
“A what?” you ask.
That’s right — a backwards genuflection.
I was sitting in a Seattle-area church recently before Mass, and a boy about ten years old got up from his pew, walked into the aisle, turned his back to the altar, and before leaving the church proper…genuflected!
After getting over my initial shock, I reflected on what this bizarre episode meant. While we are safe in assuming the boy did not intend it, his backwards genuflection was at once symptomatic and symbolic of what has happened in catechesis over the past forty years. We’ve turned our backs on God, faced the world and bowed down to adore it. God has been deliberately ignored, and the world deliberately adored.
We’ve tossed aside 2,000 years of Apostolic Teaching in the hopes that we will win the approval of the world. This is despite the fact that the world has traditionally been seen as one of the three main enemies of man, along with the flesh and the devil. We have gone to great lengths in the past four decades first to accommodate, then to embrace, and finally to worship, one of the enemies of man: the world.
Someone recently told me that the Church needs to “change with the times,” or in other words, to change with the world. If this were really the case, what need would we have for the Church, whose teaching is for all ages, and therefore timeless? The purpose of the Church is not to change with everything around it; the purpose of the Church, “the pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15) is to remain firm when the world is shaking.
While there are some minor things which can be changed and adapted to specific situations, the essential Deposit of the Faith remains unchanged, because Truth cannot change. In Hebrews 13:8-9, we are reminded that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teaching.”
Unfortunately, we have indeed been carried far, far away by all kinds of strange teaching since the Second Vatican Council. Here are just a few of the heresies that have been widely circulated: the Mass is not a Sacrifice, but only a community meal; Jesus is not present in a completely unique way in the Holy Eucharist; the Church is a man-made institution; contraception is okay; and it doesn’t matter what you believe or do because we all go to Heaven anyway–except maybe for Hitler.
These and many other strange teachings have been foisted upon unsuspecting Catholics, and this despite the fact that absolutely no teaching of the Church was changed at the Second Vatican Council. None. Some people have read doctrinal changes into the Council documents, but there are actually none there.
Fortunately, however, God’s Providence is far greater than our stupidity, and God has provided us with many means of attaining a true knowledge of the Faith. Mother Angelica’s Eternal Word Television Network, Father Corapi’s Santa Cruz Media apostolate, and Karl Keating’s Catholic Answers organization are three great places to find out the Truth of the Catholic Faith, rather than someone‘s mere opinion.
When one makes use of resources such as these (and those below), prays, attends Mass, and goes to Confession regularly, he is well on his way to becoming a saint. When one deliberately chooses not make use of such resources, does not pray, attend Mass or go to Confession regularly, then he is on his way to Hell. In fact, he is in a sense already in Hell. St Philip Neri (1515-1595) suggested that
In this life there is no Purgatory; it is either Hell or Heaven; for to him who serves God truly, every trouble and infirmity turns into consolations, and through all kinds of trouble he has a Heaven within himself even in this world: and he who does not serve God truly, and gives himself up to sensuality, has one Hell in this world, and another in the next.
Operating on the assumption that Heaven, rather than Hell, is what we really want, then let us waste no time in learning, loving, and living the Truth of the Catholic Faith. This is the Faith (TAN Books) provides a very clear summary of Church teaching, while Prayer–Great Means of Grace (TAN) explains the necessity and power of regular prayer, The Incredible Catholic Mass (TAN) the unsurpassed power of the Mass, and Pardon and Peace (Roman Catholic Books) the great value of sacramental Confession.
By the way, for those of you who don’t know (and there are many who don’t; I used to be one of them), genuflecting is an outward sign of adoration that Catholics perform when in the presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. We genuflect toward the tabernacle, because the hosts contained therein have been changed from bread into the very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ during Mass, and are now reserved in the church for our worship.
Let us pray that everyone without a Catholic compass (symbolized by that poor ten-year-old boy mentioned earlier), learns and appreciates this truth, for there is nothing more beautiful this side of death. As St Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787) exclaimed, “Behold the source of every good: Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament!” Our Lord tells us to “Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me” (John 15:4).
