Sit, Stand, Kneel

In the Book of Ecclesiastes, there is a very famous passage that beautifully describes that there is a time for everything in this life. The first two verses are as follows:

A Time for Everything

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot

For those of us raised as Catholics, we know all too well that this logic applies to the Mass. For indeed, there is a time to sit, and a time to stand, a time to kneel, and a time to genuflect. We've had this instilled in us from birth.

Amazingly, this basic liturgical instinct betrays most Catholics when attending a Mass of Christian Burial, aka, Funeral Mass. For some reason, people simply have no idea when to stand, sit and kneel.

Being that this phenomenon is universal, I'm sure an ample amount of time is dedicated at the seminary to help priests better deal with this problem. Most are very good and hide their disdain for the congregation's lack of protocol well.

The common strategy is to incorporate verbiage such as "Please stand as we pray", or, "Please be seated for the readings." Others are more clever and enlist the funeral director to position himself in the front pew to stand, sit and kneel on cue, which I can tell you from experience, is not always successful.

There is one priest in particular, who I witnessed while helping a fellow funeral director in a neighboring state, that either missed this lesson in seminary, or chose to ignore it. He was an older gentleman who became a priest later in life. I'm guessing his first profession was either prison guard or dog trainer based on the way he less than delicately directed his flock.

His tact was to simply blurt out "SIT", "STAND", "KNEEL" at the appropriate time. I've never seen anything like it. It was so odd in fact, that I literally had trouble wrapping my mind around it.

The next time you're at a Funeral Mass, take notice at how the priest directs the congregation to stand, sit and kneel. I think you'll find it interesting. Hopefully this insight will help to bring a smile to your face during a very somber time.