Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York (USA) explains what genuflection is, one of the positions of Catholics in the churches, and why this sign is made.
In a video posted today on his social networks, the purple commented that on Monday, March 17, San Patricio Day, a woman who visited him told him that, although he is not Catholic, he loves the church and likes to go to Mass, although he does not understand the positions in it, so the purple has decided to explain them, starting with the genuflection.
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“This is the first posture that Catholics always do. When we go to church, we look for the Tabernacle, where the presence of our Lord rests in the Blessed Sacrament and we do genuflection,” said the archbishop of New York.
“We go down with a knee and do it. Why? Because it is the old sign of worship, the old sign of esteem, the old sign of worship,” he continued.
On St. Patrick’s Day, I had a visitor who isn’t a Catholic. She said she never knows what to do during Mass! I thought for a couple days I might go through the different postures of the Mass. Here’s the first one: genuflection. @thegnewsroom pic.twitter.com/RqBtlnllii
— Cardinal Dolan (@CardinalDolan) March 20, 2025
The Cardinal also said “that when he hears the name of Jesus, every knee doubles on earth and heaven, as St. Paul teaches. That is genuflection and we do it before Jesus, before his presence in the Blessed Sacrament. Do not forget to do it!”
The purple American also indicated that “this beautiful tradition of genuflection, before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, could be failing a bit. No! We cannot let that happen, it is a great act of devotion.”
To conclude, Cardinal Dolan recalled that “Saint Thomas Aquinas said ‘Do you know what? Satan has no knees because he does not make genuflection before anyone’. When we do, we do it before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.”
He numeral 274 From the general instruction of the Roman Missal, he points out that “genuflection, which is done bending the right knee to the earth, means worship; and that is why he reserves for the Blessed Sacrament, as well as for the Holy Cross” on Good Friday.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.