Hamstrung in Prayer

Abstract

A neurologist reflects upon the function of the hamstring, including kneeling, and being hamstrung, both physically and spiritually.

I was folding laundry—an almost daily, thankless job to keep our family of four in clean clothes—pivoting between the laundry basket and the sofa. I grab an article of clothing from the basket and fold it neatly, placing it upon a blanket spread on the sofa. The unfolded blanket gives me plenty of surface area to stack the piles of clothing: here go my daughter's t-shirts, there my son's shorts, and a mound of my husband's socks in the corner.

I often sit on the floor while folding, but I realized halfway through the task that I was actually kneeling. A sudden thought came to me, When was the last time I knelt to pray?

While most of my childhood prayers were dutifully said before our bedroom prayer corner, with the Infant Jesus of Prague and my favorite saint figurines aligned on the dresser, I freely admit that when I got older, it became much easier to say prayers snuggled up in bed. After a long day at school or at work, my evening prayers became more of an afterthought. In high school, I had heard that my guardian angel would finish my rosary if I fell asleep while saying it, which sounded like a good deal to me. Burning the midnight oil as a night owl, I often wrap up chores and quotidian tasks before collapsing into bed. Mornings are not much better. I have never been much of an early riser, so rolling out of bed and hurrying into my clothes and out the door was more my typical style.

When I did have more time in my day, though, I would go to daily Mass, where I would, and still do, kneel. In medical school and residency, my local parish had an early evening Mass that I could make sometimes if I got out of clinic early. In fellowship, a more flexible schedule and an early morning Mass meant that I got to go almost daily before heading in to work. As is typical for the daily Mass crowd, I often saw a lot of retirees and was impressed to see these older individuals, many of whom probably had hip and knee replacements, still bent reverently on arthritic limbs. I was proud to kneel alongside them in the hopes that when I was their age, I would be doing the same.

And I knelt plenty at work. I have vivid memories of advanced life support class, where we would save the life of the manakin, collapsed on the floor, by giving chest compressions. I would remind myself to bend from the waist and lock my arms to optimize my body's fulcrum as I knelt in that position. As a neurologist, I am used to crouching to elicit patellar reflexes and assess ankle dorsiflexion and plantarflexion. This occurs most frequently when a patient arrives at the clinic in a wheelchair and is unable to move to the examination table, so I kneel as I remove socks and shoes to check the Babinski. During pediatric rotations, getting eye-level with the children by getting on bended knee was the best way to play the “games” that go with the neurological exam.

For all this kneeling, when was the last time I prayed for a patient? Taking a spiritual history is recognized as a facet of social history (Ely 2015, 112–115), yet I rarely engage in this matter. I have had retired ministers volunteer their profession. Patients with aphasia still seek comfort in the pages of their Bible. Those with depression find support in going to church. We may find a common religious bond at the moment, but it often does not last much beyond that. I find the balance between practicing at an academic and non-denominational medical center as a practicing Catholic difficult to navigate at times.

And when was the last time I prayed with a patient? I have had patients or loved ones of patients grasp my hand gratefully, smiling, “God bless you, Doctor!” Others have spontaneously called out in prayer, petitioning for blessings and healing. With their permission, I have prayed with patients several times throughout my practice of medicine, but it's something I should think of more often.

While I certainly was kneeling for these various tasks, I realize I was not using all my God-given muscles for their intended purpose. Kneeling is an appropriate posture for prayer, present throughout the Old and New Testament in the Bible. Interestingly, the idea of kneeling in prayer is not derived from any one culture: it is distinctly Biblical and closely associated with Christian prayer. For example, the description of kneeling in St. Luke's Gospel is not a typical phrase found in classical Greek. This neologism is befitting this distinct act of worship of God-made Man: a posture of humility (Ratzinger 2002). “Rather, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth […]” (Philippians 2: 7–11). Our physical bodies reflect our spiritual disposition.

As a physician, I know one of the major functions of the hamstring is to kneel (Poudel and Pandey 2022). These posterior thigh muscles are susceptible to harm to the point that the term “hamstrung” is used to indicate a crippling injury, whether physically or metaphorically. I have come to a better realization of how my perspective on prayer is hamstrung by my own faults and fears. And I humbly petition the Lord for the grace to strengthen my prayer life.