The other day a friend of mine sent me a remarkable photograph of an ordination scene: two young men in albs lying face down, straight as arrows, hands crossed under foreheads, on an oriental rug placed before two marble steps mounting to an altar; and off to the side, a little boy in shorts imitating their posture, face down on the bare floor. To the ordinands, I imagine, it was a moment of supreme awe. To the little boy, it must have looked like naptime; yet to judge by his perfect prostration, this was naptime of a very novel and solemn sort.
If you’ve ever been present at a rite in which prostration occurs, you know what a striking impression it makes. It’s not often that one gets to see a fellow human being making an act of total self-surrender. Among Christians, the gesture is reserved mainly for life-changing events such as monastic profession, the blessing of an abbot or abbess or the conferring of Holy Orders. Ordinary laypeople are typically onlookers; yet no one can observe the act of prostration without feeling drawn in—and half-wanting to imitate to it, like the little boy in the picture. There is a powerful, built-in desire to give ourselves wholly to God. We feel that if only we could place ourselves in such a posture, everything in our muddled hearts and minds would be set right.
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