Kyrie, eleison!

The priest, accompanied by his assistants, approaches and venerates the altar, and soon afterwards all singing “Lord, have mercy” to Christ to return in glory.

This short, but repetitive, chant comes from the practice of acclaiming the arrival of the emperor on his formal visit, or his “advent”, which was a moment to claim clemency and kindness. It’s not so much an acknowledgement of sinfulness, but a general cry for mercy when considering the Lord will return to judge the living and the dead. One of the first moments of our celebration, then, already looks towards the Lord’s return in glory, emphasising we are celebrating “until he comes”.

We often confuse the penitential act with the Kyrie, eleison/Lord, have mercy. The penitential act contains a formula of general confession. The Kyrie comes after all of that and is quite distinct.

The exception to this rule is the third version of the penitential act, with phrases like “You were sent to heal the contrite of heart. Lord, have mercy”. We could debate whether this third version is in fact a penitential act at all: there is no formula of general confession, but a development of the meaning of the Kyrie, eleison itself.

The present practice of doubling the Kyrie in a dialogue form - as opposed to the triple Kyrie and triple Christe until 1969 - has weakened our experience of the Kyrie, especially when we simply recite the words.

It is an important moment at the beginning of Mass which focuses our attention on our celebrating being “until the Lord comes”, recalled in other moments during the Mass too.

Other traditions in the Church have a similar moment to the Kyrie. The Byzantine tradition, including Ukraine and Greece, employ the Trihaghion (Holy is God, Holy and Strong, Holy Immortal One have mercy on us) in a similar fashion to our use of the Kyrie, eleison.