Reporting live from Duluth, Minnesota, my name is Father Mike Schmitz
For ... W...
Ascension Presents... Jesus ...
OK, here we go
Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension Presents.
Have you ever noticed that when some people go into church,
walk into a catholic church,
that before they go into the pew, it looks like they kind of trip?
They just like kind of like stutter step
and then they duck into the pew.
Some people, they stop and go down to their knee...
Yeah, that's what we were supposed to do.
The little trip thing, it was probably an attempt at a genuflection
Sorry, sidebar:
Have you ever done this: You've ever gone into a movie theater, and you're Catholic,
and you accidentally genuflect before you go into the row?
Yes, I have done that on accident.
Back to our story.
As you go into church, right, before you go into the pew,
you usually genuflect
What's does genuflection mean?
That's great question.
It comes from two Latin words combined together
genu- and -flection or something like this
one means "knee" while the other means "bend" - "to bend the knee" basically
so as you go into church
before you go into the pew, we genuflect - bend the knee -
towards the tabernacle, towards Jesus in the tabernacle.
Now, if you're in one of those churches that doesn't have a tabernacle,
but you have an altar right in the front,
you would BOW in that case because we bow to the altar as a symbol of Jesus.
The Eucharist is not a symbol of Jesus. The Eucharist IS Jesus so we go boom, all the way to the knee for that.
Why do some people seem to trip and some people seem to actually know what they're doing?
I think because some people don't know what they're doing.
So what's the whole point behind genuflection?
I'm saying something with my body to God in the tabernacle,
saying something with our body to Jesus in the Eucharist.
What am I saying?
I'm saying at least one of three things, maybe all three at the same time.
Number one, genuflecting, bending that knee, is an act of humility
It's saying like, "OK, Jesus in the Eucharist you are God. I am not God."
And we have the opportunity at that moment to go down to the knee just like a
like a person before their king, before someone before their lord
and saying, "You are God, You're the Lord."
So when I take that knee in front of the tabernacle,
what we're saying is, "You're God, I'm not." It's a posture of humility.
"You're God, I'm not."
but it's also posture of action
It's a posture of committing yourself to the Lord's service
and what I mean by that is back in the day,
when knights would pledge their service to their king,
what they would do is they would take a knee, they would genuflect, essentially,
before the king saying, "I pledge my sword to you."
And this is I think this is one of the cooler things in the movie The Lord of the Rings,
remember when they're at Rivendell,
I'm totally geeking out right now, but when they are at Rivendell,
and they discover, OK, we have this ring,
we got to destroy it in Mordor and who's gonna do it?
and then Frodo says, Well, I'll do it although I don't know the way...
"...I don't know how to get there." If he goes on his own, he's toast.
Aragorn takes a knee in front of Frodo
And he says, "If by my life or by my death, I can help you to accomplish this task, then you have my sword."
He takes that knee.
So first is humility, right, before Jesus in the Eucharist.
The second step is "I'm at your service."
What you're saying when you genuflect on the way into church and then the way out of church
is, "Lord Jesus if by my life or by my death, ...
"...I can help You to accomplish the task that the mission You have of redeeming the world, ...
"...of bringing light to darkness, of bringing hope to where people have no hope, ...
"...of bringing healing to brokenness, then You have my life."
So, one it's a movement of humility. Two: it's a movement of service.
Three: It's a movement of love,
because think about this:
when in our culture
when would per chance a young man
find himself upon one knee before the woman that he loves?
When he's proposing to her,
When he's saying,
"Would you accept me as your husband for the rest of your life?
"Will you give me the privilege, the honor, the duty of loving you for the rest of my life?"
When you come into church, and when you leave church, when you genuflect before Jesus in the Eucharist,
That's what you're saying too - it's not only an act of humility and an act of service. It's an act of love
Jesus, I love you. Would you let me love you with my whole life?
When you take that knee, what we're saying is, "You're God, and I'm not."
What we are saying is, "Jesus, if by my life or by my death, I can help you to accomplish your mission of redeeming the world, ...
"...then just use me."
and number three, Jesus I love you. Let me love you my whole life.
So when we know what's going on behind these movements at Mass, it changes everything.
Do the same motions, but it's no longer going through the motions
It's doing the motions with meaning.
For all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name's Father Mike
God bless
so someone said the other day that I sound like a used car salesman [on] these and I was like that is rude and
accurate
But I can't slow down when I'm talking because then it's like hello
My name's father Mike Schmitz. This is ascension presents
I don't want to put you to sleep
But you're going to go to sleep because I've got all this energy when I want to talk about things that mean something to me
But I can't let it go out because I can't start jumping around cuz I'll break the chair
I can't start waving my hands in the air because that'll just look really weird
So it's gotta come out somehow and I starts talking faster. I just care that's how much I care