Week 10: Kyrie

After the priest greets us to open the mass and we scour our hearts during the penitential act, we sing or speak the familiar chant, Kyrie Eleison. This simple chant is loaded with meaning and tradition. I invite you to consider this meaning each week when you chant the Kyrie.

Kyrie Eleison is a Greek phrase that translates as “Lord have mercy.” The phrase is ancient. It is found in both the Old Testament and New Testament, and was also commonly used in reference to secular emperors. This ancient way of paying homage took on new meaning in the Christian Church. Our three- part chant prays for mercy not from a single emperor, but from our Holy Trinity. The first kyrie eleison is prayed to God the Father, christe eleison is prayed to Christ, the son, and the final kyrie eleison, is to the Holy Spirit. These three are united in one heavenly chant for mercy.

This chant is truly the culmination of the penitential rite: after we have all acknowledged that we are sinners and seek humility before God, we chant the Kyrie. We allow our voices to express the only thing that a humble, powerless servant could: Lord, have mercy. We don’t ask for mercy because we’re afraid our God will viciously harm us if we don’t beg. This is an act of self-emptying, of actively putting ourselves at the Lord’s mercy, just as Christ did on the cross. It is an act of trust, an act of love.

One last thought: does it seem random to you that we use a Greek phrase in our English mass? Well, we use other languages too, like Hebrew when we say Amen and Alleluia, or Latin when we say Sanctus and Agnus Dei. These foreign phrases are monuments of prayer given to us by people of different cultures and times. Thousands of years before Christ, people seeking God found the vocabulary of phrases like Kyrie Eleison, but these words only revealed their true power and precision when Jesus came into the current of history and changed it forever. In Christ, communion with God surpasses the limits of languages, cultures, and time.