Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: David McElwee
The gesture is not one common in our culture, although we use the words “breast-beating” in certain contexts. We strike our breasts in the liturgy because it is a nonverbal way of saying in the Bible that you are repentant.
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Read More »We strike our breasts in the liturgy because it is a nonverbal way of saying in the Bible that you are repentant. Remember the Publican and the Pharisee? The first was beating his breast, as the Jews did on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and said, “Have mercy on me a sinner.” It was a public gesture, because it is not hidden from others. The Greek of the New Testament said that the Pharisee was praying “to himself” (in more senses than one, probably) while the Publican is making a spectacle of his grief for his sin and his desire for reconciliation with God. In the first Eucharistic prayer there is an example of a single striking of the breast by the priest when he says, “To us, also, your servants, who, though sinners.” That has fallen beneath the radar of some American Catholics because those words are not used so much in many parishes, because of the ever-popular second and third Eucharistic prayers. Soon, however, we will be beating our breasts with the best of them when the new translation comes into effect this Advent. For me, it is a welcome change because we will be able to rescue the publican’s gesture and because there is something about threes in the Bible, and that is nice to remember that in the liturgy. Many times Bible stories insist on repetition and this has something to do with human nature and not just Hebrew grammar. What is repeated is important. Poets know this. Gertrude Stein could have said, “A rose is a rose,” and left it at that. Shakespeare has Macbeth remark about, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” creeping in its petty pace when he could have said it without the repetition. English does not like repetitions, generally, but neither does it outlaw them. And a repetition like, “my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault,” is both more memorable rhetorically and more effective psychologically. There is also the psychological resonance of repeating our guilt three times that is helpful. It should remind of a very famous example. When St. Peter said that he would never be among those who denied the Lord, Jesus said to him that he would deny him three times, “before the cock crows,” meaning before the night was over. All the evangelists have the Jesus’ prediction of the denial and Peter’s lapse of loyalty, but only St. John presents us with the reconciliation of the saint with his Lord on the shores of Galilee. There are three sets of three. Jesus predicts the denial saying that before the cock crows three times. Then there is actual denial. And, when it is all over, and it appears that Peter has gone back to fishing fishes instead of men, there is a reconciliation with his threefold declaration of love for the Lord. Peter’s redemption is symmetrical with his fall.
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