Public urged to rediscover culture of kneeling

DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines – The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has asked the faithful to rediscover the culture of kneeling for repentance and mercy.

“If we want to seek true renewal, let us learn how to kneel again,” CBCP president and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said in a pastoral letter for the coming Jubilee Year of Mercy, Year of the Eucharist and the Family.

“Our generation seems to have lost the religious gesture of kneeling; we have become more of a clapping generation,” he said.

Villegas said kneeling is not just an act to seek mercy for our sins.

“It is also a gesture of compassion for our fellow wounded sinners,” he said.

He said people are invited to kneel to bind the wounds of those who are bleeding and hurting.

“Kneeling disposes us to receive and share mercy. Kneeling reminds us that we have fallen and in our fallen yet forgiven condition, we must show mercy to one another,” he said.

“We must kneel down in contrition before God for our sins. We kneel down in sorrow for the scars on nature, the destruction of complex living systems sacrificed on the altar of economic progress,” he added.

Villegas urged the faithful to kneel down in sorrow for abuses against the weak and vulnerable, the marginalized and misjudged, suspected and gossiped about.

“If we want renewal, we must learn the humility of kneeling from the heart,” the CBCP head said.

The Church all over the world will observe the Jubilee Year of Mercy from Dec. 8 to Nov. 20 next year.