The Recovering Choir Director

I got this message from a student today regarding our Lenten ‘penitential rite’. I don’t agree with the ‘liturgical innovation’ that the student describes below, but again, I have been emasculated in my music selection responsibilities. I hope you get a kick out of this message as much as I do. Of course, I agree with the heart of what he’s saying.

Names have been blotted out to protect the innocent.

Dear leaders of our community,

I am writing to express and register my deep opposition and regret regarding a “liturgical innovation” at Mass on the Second Sunday of Lent, March 16, 2003. I am referring to the altered form of the Kyrie, eleison, sung to the tune of “Hold us in Your Mercy” with the minister singing “Kyrie/Christe, eleision” and the people responding with “Hold us in your mercy.” That this innovation threatens to repeat itself during the remaining Sundays of Lent prompts me to address this email to you.

This “innovation” goes against some 15 centuries of tradition of our venerable Roman rite. From the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great, the minister sings the Kyrie, eleison, with the people responding with Kyrie, eleison, and similarly with the Christe, eleison (which, for the history buff among us, is a true Roman invention, something worth mentioning since it’s rare that Rome comes to us with something new in the liturgy). This unique tradition of the alternate sending up of pleas for misericordia Dei in Greek has been preserved and maintained, with slight alterations, through the many reforms in the Roman Mass. Even in the new missal of Pope Paul VI, the revisers maintained this venerable tradition, restoring to their original integrity, of minister and people alternating the Kyrie/Christe, eleison, even though they saw fit to introduce new forms for the expression of penitence.

It seems already regrettable to me that our regular Sunday liturgies do not grace this ancient custom with music. Let us not forget that the same Pope Gregory permitted the omission of other customary invocations at Mass so that the people “may dwell longer on these words [the Kyrie/Christe, eleison] of prayer.” (Ep. IX) Insult is now added to injury when some leaders in our community, out of good intentions no doubt, decide to substitute the people’s response of Kyrie/Christe, eleison with another that has no place in our Roman tradition at this part of the Mass.

It seems ironic to me that at a time when we’re all rejoicing in a restored liturgy that recovers the best of our Roman tradition suited to the demands of our time (a project that Eastern Catholics are also in progress, with greater emphasis on the recovery of tradition), our community should be so quick to forsake that excellent and uninterrupted tradition that extends all the way to the beginning of the Roman rite for a line from modernity written by Rory Cooney and published by GIA in 1993. And all this to what good purpose?

One unhealthy development after the Council was a desire by some to be fossilized within some ecclesiastical traditions and customs. Another equally unhealthy development, though mysteriously more “approved” in the US, is the desire to put ego before that which has been handed on to us by Christians before us. I pray that you and I will not follow the bad example of either of these well-intentioned but misguided groups. Rather, may we grow to combine and savor the fruits of the inspiration of the Spirit in our tradition with the gifts the same Spirit bestows on his people today. May we become like “the householder who brings out from his storeroom new things as well as old.” (Matthew 13:52, NJB)

Miserere nostri, Domine. Kyrie, eleison.

With every prayerful wish, I hope to remain,
frater vos in Christo,
xxxxx xxxxx xxxx xx