Kyrie eleison

Lord, have mercy.		Kyrie eleison.
Christ, have mercy.	or	Christe eleison.
Lord have mercy.		Kyrie eleison.

With the twentieth century liturgical reform, it has become the practice of the Church to shift during Lent from singing a Song of Praise at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word to singing or saying the Kyrie eleison, as though the Kyrie were penitential. It is not, not necessarily so. The Kyrie has a history that predates Christianity’s taking it up in worship. In ancient Roman times people in the streets would cry out “Kyrie eleison” as the emperor, or perhaps some other worthy person, passed by or made his way through the crowd. Not a fawning, crawling, groveling plea, it’s a hail, a salute of honor and respect. Before the liturgical reform, the Kyrie eleison was a required part of the opening liturgy when the Decalogue was not said. Much, most or all of our liturgy comes to us from or through the Roman Catholic Church, which has online websites explaining that the Kyrie is not necessarily penitential. And in the Episcopal Church there are sung Kyrie settings that are powerful and not “Lentish.” In my growing up years, we never sang the three-fold Merbecke (1549) setting plaintively, it was always cheerfully "up" as we welcomed the Lord into our worship.

Shortly after the Book of Common Prayer was revised in the nineteen-seventies, a cartoon appeared that pictured a class of small children who had just been taught with an Instructed Eucharist. The priest asked if there were any questions. One little boy (or maybe it was a little girl, I don’t remember) raised a hand. “Yes, dear?” said the priest.

“Two questions, Father. First, how can we be certain that the Sacrament is efficacious? And secondly, when will the ablutions be restored to their rightful place in the liturgy?”

Just so -- Whose idea was it that the Kyrie eleison would become a penitential plea? And when will it be restored to its rightful place in the liturgy?!

TW+