The Use of Posture

 Fr. Walter Ciszek 

Posture, like verbal formulas, is not essential to prayer. Perseverance is. Kneeling is not necessarily more conducive to prayer than sitting; nor is standing necessarily better than lying down. Yet the mortal man is a peculiar thing made up of body and soul; so our efforts to control the mind can often be connected with an effort at bodily control. Relax the body, and the mind goes running off to recreation. 

We are creatures of habit, and we can sometimes help ourselves achieve a sort of self-control that leads more readily to recollection by taking up a posture we traditionally associate with prayer. Such an effort, moreover, such perseverance is an earnest example of our desire to respond to God’s prompting and to do his will. An attitude of readiness to try over and over again in our quest to find God and his will in prayer is in itself a grace and a blessing of major consequence. What other purpose has man in life but to do God’s will? 

He Leadeth Me