Kyrie Eleison

Among the oldest words in the Mass

The Kyrie is the one part of the Ordinary of the Latin Mass that is not Latin at all. Kýrie eléison is Greek — 'Lord, have mercy' — and it is older than the Roman liturgy itself, echoing the blind men on the Jericho road who cried out those very words to Christ as He passed. When the Western Church adopted the litany from the East around the fifth century, it kept the Greek untranslated, as if the cry were too old and too honest to touch.

In the chant repertoire the Kyrie became a field of astonishing invention. Because its text is only six words, composers poured everything into melody: some Kyries are nearly syllabic and plain, others spin a single 'e' of eléison into long melismas that rise and circle like smoke. The great medieval settings — Kyrie XI 'Orbis factor', the Kyrie of Mass VIII 'De angelis' that most Catholics can still hum — are among the most loved melodies of the whole tradition.

How to pray it

The Kyrie is the easiest chant to make your own because it asks for only one thing, three times, in three directions: mercy from the Lord, mercy from Christ, mercy from the Lord. The traditional ninefold form (each invocation sung three times) was long read as addressing the Trinity.

Pray it as the blind men did — as if Christ were passing and this were the moment. It needs no preparation and no book. It is the prayer for the day you have no words: six of them are already provided.

Listening

Listen for the shape of pleading: nearly every Kyrie rises on Ký-ri-e — the calling out — and settles on eléison — the asking. Once you hear that arc, you hear the prayer inside the music.