Sacred Signs: Kneeling

This liturgical meditation is taken from Romano Guardini's book, Sacred Signs. How does a man hold himself when he is proud? He stands up straight, lifts his head and spreads out his shoulders and makes the most of himself. Everything about him says ‘I am bigger and greater than you!’ But if a man is humble and ‘feels small,’ he bends his head and, as it were, sinks into himself. He ‘lowers himself.’ And the greater the person before whom he stands, the more does he lower himself, and the smaller he feels in his own eyes. And when do we feel more clearly our littleness than when we stand before God, the great God, who is the same yesterday as today, the same through all the centuries and thousands of years? It is He Who fills this room, this city and the whole wide world; Who stretches far beyond all the starry heaven, and before Whom it is all but a speck of dust. The holy God, pure and just, and of endless greatness. How great He is – and how little I am! So little, that I cannot measure myself against Him; that before Him I am a mere nothing. It stands to reason that I cannot be proud before Him. I truly feel small and could wish to make myself even smaller, so that it may be more in keeping with His presence.