GENUFLECTION. - It is the act of bending the right knee as a gesture of veneration and, by extension, the posture adopted in prayer, remaining resting on one's knees for a certain time at determined moments. The first Christians did nothing other than continue the same Jewish customs. It is known in fact from Hegesippus that St. James the Apostle, bishop of Jerusalem, spent long periods on his knees in the Temple, so as to develop calluses on his knees (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., II, ch. 23, 6). St. Stephen knelt in his final prayer, St. Peter and St. Paul prayed on their knees, and the Christians who accompanied St. Paul to the ship that was carrying him far away knelt to pray on the seashore (Act. 7, 60; 9, 40; 20, 36; 21, 5).
In Christian antiquity prayer on one's knees was very frequent, and monks were accustomed to genuflect at the end of every psalm. In Ireland genuflection was much in use, and of certain saints it is known that they practiced it hundreds of times a day. In Gaul, according to can. 37 of the Third Council of Tours of the year 813, people did not genuflect on Easter day and during the Easter season. In the Masses of the Ember Days, which are very ancient and have a marked character of penance, there is still the deacon's invitation to the faithful to kneel: Flectamus genua. Genuflection, which is made by bending the right knee to the ground, was introduced rather late, and only in the Latin Church, for the Most Holy Sacrament, the Pope, and bishops. The Easterners have in its place the metanoia, which is a deep bow reaching down to touch the ground with the right hand, followed by the kissing of the tips of the joined fingers and by the sign of the cross.
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