In the CELESTIAL CHURCH OF CHRIST, God is worshipped with the forehead to the ground. This was already the way people prayed in the homes of the first faithful, long before adoration took its place in the services. Lévi M. YANSUNNU remembers it from his childhood:
When I was still very small, I used to watch my parents at home. After the hymns of the morning prayers, my father's whole household would lie down like this, forehead to the ground. That is what we have always done in the Celestial Church of Christ.
In the Prophet's time, everyone bowed down in this way, forehead to the ground, at the service of the first Thursday of the month, at the great feasts, and on 24 December, at the service that recalls the birth of the Lord.
"Seven times a day do I praise thee"
This practice rests on a verse from the Psalms: "Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments" (Psalm 119:164). It is the daily adoration. In the morning, the one who looks after the altar rings the bell, and the words "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts" are said. They are said with the forehead to the ground, not standing and looking at the altar. Why? Because no one can stand before the Lord: this is what Psalm 24 and Isaiah's vision say (Isaiah 6).
The Bible is full of this gesture. Abraham bowed himself to the ground before the three visitors at Mamre (Genesis 18). In the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the people stood to listen to the reading of the Law, lifted up their hands, answered "Amen", then bowed their heads and worshipped with their faces to the ground (Nehemiah 8). That is where our hands raised towards heaven come from, like those of Moses during the battle against Amalek (Exodus 17).
"Bow down", not "Let us bow down"
This is the heart of the teaching. The hymn of adoration repeats a command that was given at Gethsemane, on the night Jesus was arrested (Luke 22, from verse 41). Jesus had gone a little way from his apostles to pray, and an angel appeared to him to strengthen him. The angel's command was addressed to the whole group: "Bow down." But the apostles were asleep, overcome by fear and weariness. Only one voice answered, that of Jesus: "I bow down before Him."
The angel said: bow down before the eternal King. The others having fallen asleep, Jesus Christ alone answered. The Prophet, the sole founder of the Church, said to repeat exactly what the angel said. That is why I made the correction.
To sing "Let us bow down" ("Prosternons-nous") is therefore to change the words that were received. In Benin, other elders had already made the same correction, among them Georges YANSUNNU, the choirmaster of the Supreme Headquarters. And in the videos where the Prophet OSCHOFFA leads the adoration himself, he can be heard singing "Prosternez-vous", "Bow down".
The hosts of heaven bow down with us
In the Prophet's time, this service began with a hymn that invites the hosts of heaven to come and rejoice with the faithful. The Prophet had explained its meaning: when the hosts of heaven come, they bow down before God at the same time as we do. The Constitution bleue (the "Blue Constitution") tells it on page 26: a bell rang, and those above and those below bowed down together, forehead to the ground, before the Lord.
In this same hymn, the word aria is heard. It is not a holy name of God, as is sometimes said, and it calls for no particular gestures: in old Yoruba, it simply means joy, celebration. Lévi M. YANSUNNU had already pointed this out, in 2007 or 2008, to the head of the Church's choir in Nigeria.
A sign of total submission
In West Africa, and especially in Yoruba country and in Allada, one did not speak to the king standing up: one lay down before him, forehead to the ground. The Celestial Christian, for his part, does not bow down before an earthly king, but before the Lord, "our only, sole and incomparable Creator". By kneeling with his forehead to the ground, he tells Him that he is His child and that he submits to Him entirely.
That is why, during services, the faithful kneeling with their foreheads to the ground must not be made to get up on the pretext that they are asleep. This position is the total submission the Prophet asked for, and the Constitution bleue records it. Lévi M. YANSUNNU bears witness: he rises from it lighter.
It is as if something has fallen from my shoulders, and I believe it is my sins.
Anyone who has never done it can try: kneel, forehead to the ground, stay like this for thirty seconds or a minute while praying, then rise and sing "Bow down before the King".
Returning to the old paths
Two passages of the Bible say so. Job 8, verse 8: "Enquire, I pray thee, of the former age." And Jeremiah 6, verse 16: "Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein." Adoration, as the Prophet OSCHOFFA handed it down, is one of these old paths. The recommendations and commands of the Holy Spirit to the Prophet OSCHOFFA are gathered in La Doctrine.
