• Lord, Have Mercy (Kyrie)

Saint Paul said that it is only in the Spirit that we can acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. In praying the Kyrie (Greek for “Lord”), we are acknowledging that Jesus is Lord. When the ancient Jews would come across the sacred name of God in the Scripture, they were forbidden to say His name. Only the high priest could intone the name once a year. So, what did the Jewish people do? Whenever they would come upon the name of God, they would say “Lord.”

So, in this prayer, we pray to Jesus as God and ask Him for His forgiveness for our sins. At times in the history of the Mass, the threefold repetition of “Lord, have mercy” has been a way of asking the Triune God for mercy; the first time we said “Lord, have mercy,” we were invoking the Father; the “Christ have mercy” referred to the Son; and the final “Lord, have mercy referred to the Holy Spirit. Older Catholic will also remember that each invocation was said three times instead of two times, as it is now. The current meaning of the “lord, …” “Christ, … “and “Lord, …” all refer to Jesus.

If the prayer is prayed as “Kyrie, eleison” and “Christe, eleison”, it is the remnant of an ancient prayer in Greek. Because the New Testament was written in Greek, here we are praying in the language of the earthly Church.

NB: In Matthew 9:27–30, two blind men follow Jesus and cry out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” After asking them if they have faith, Jesus heals them of their blindness.