AUCKLAND New Zealands Catholic bishops are to seek approval from the Vatican for kneeling to be the standard posture of the faithful during the Eucharistic Prayer at Masses. At their meeting in Dunedin last month, the bishops voted not unanimously that the New Zealand version of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal sanction kneeling from the end of the Sanctus until after the Great Amen, which is the practice in most dioceses.
The conference is submitting the text of the Australian GIRM, with amendments, to the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments for adoption for use in New Zealand.
The National Liturgy Commission had recommended that standing be the posture for the Eucharistic Prayer.
Episcopal deputy for liturgy Bishop Denis Browne told NZ Catholic the conferences decision on kneeling is in keeping with the GIRM.
Standing is the normal posture during the Eucharistic Prayer as stated by the revised GIRM, with the assembly kneeling only for the Consecration. But it also says that, where kneeling is the custom throughout the prayer, it is laudably retained.
People can be excused from kneeling for reasons of health, lack of space, large numbers present or other good reasons. Those who do not kneel should make a profound bow when the priest genuflects after the Consecration.
When the Vatican approves a New Zealand version of the GIRM, catechetical material from the new National Liturgy Office will be sent out in each diocese, Bishop Browne said.
People will have to be trained, he said.
If you go around lots of churches, people have got into the bad habit of sitting during the Eucharistic Prayer, so kneeling is going to make quite a change.
Bishop Browne said churches without kneelers, in general, would not have to be retrofitted.
People say they can't see the altar [if they kneel]. But you look at our new cathedral, for instance; like lots of churches, you can kneel quite comfortably.
And if they cant, then they can restore kneelers.
