During the breaking of the bread when we say “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us…” why are we standing? Shouldn’t we be kneeling before God? I remember as a young child kneeling.
I get a lot of questions about the liturgy (how we celebrate the Mass and do other official forms of prayer in the Church). I admit hesitating to answer many of these questions because, (1) often they are less questions than some sort of complaint, and (2) liturgy is not my forte, and I often don’t know the answers! However, as I said in a recent homily that we should all seek the meaning in why we do the things we do.
Each of the three forms of body posture we use at Mass communicates meaning. Sitting, for instance shows that we are simply listening or receiving. For that reason we sit during the readings and the homily—to listen to and receive the word of God. Standing is the traditional position for praying. You’ll notice we are standing when we do the opening prayer, the intercessions, the closing prayer, etc. We also stand to listen to the Gospel. This is also a tradition and a way of showing special respect to the Gospel. Kneeling is the traditional position for doing penance or for showing deep reverence or paying homage (such as to a king). While we often kneel to pray privately, in the Mass we kneel during the Eucharistic Prayer to show our respect and adoration of Jesus who is really and truly present in the Eucharist.
We stand at the conclusion of the Eucharistic Prayer (after the Great Amen) to pray the Lord’s Prayer (always standing to pray together). We remain standing in order to give each other the sign of peace (much easier to do standing than kneeling). The fractioning (breaking of the bread) then occurs and we recite the line you mentioned, “Lamb of God…” After this we kneel again. Could we kneel just a few moments earlier as you remember doing as a young child? Well, it might make sense as we are showing reverence to God, even showing a penitential spirit “you take away the sins of the world”, but it is not in our instructions, so we don’t do it. We do kneel for what the priest says next, “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world…”
So, my guess is simple on why the bishops and those in charge of the liturgy decided to do things this way. We need a moment that is clear for everyone to kneel (or stand or sit for that matter). The fact that we all kneel together (or sit if you cannot kneel) also communicates meaning that we are united in one body. The sign of peace is not a clear moment to let people know when to kneel. Everyone is shaking hands; some finishing sooner than others. We need to refocus and recite a couple lines of “Lamb of God” before we are ready to join together in the liturgical posture of kneeling as one body. The liturgy is not only filled with theological meaning, but it has to “work” practically too. At least, that’s my guess in this specific case—logistics.
-Fr. Greg
