To fully enter into the Sacred Liturgy in a way that is consistent with its importance requires that the faithful know what they are saying as they pray the different prayers of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This is crucial particularly because the nature of the worship of God requires that we be attentive to His presence with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. The Second Vatican Council points that out with its oft-repeated injunction to us to enter into the Liturgy with "full, active, and conscious participation." It is therefore very important that we mean what we pray, but that is dependent on us knowing what we are praying. With that in mind, let us look at some of the "Latin" in use in the Mass. I put Latin in quotation marks because the first phrase we will examine, the Kyrie, is not Latin at all but is actually Greek. The Kyrie is not only ancient as part of the Mass but is a variant of a common Biblical phrase. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament in common use during the time of Jesus and later contains, especially in the Psalms, phrases very similar to what was eventually incorporated into the Mass, e.g. "Kyrie eleison me" "Lord have mercy on me," Psalm 40:5. The cry of the heart of the people of God that their loving Father would have mercy on them is a consistent theme throughout the Scriptures. Through the influence of the Liturgy as celebrated in the East, this phrase was incorporated into the Mass. The form of the Kyrie was simplified to its present form during the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The Kyrie as it appears in English in the Novus Ordo Missae (the Mass of the Second Vatican Council) is: "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy." In its original form, as celebrated in the Latin version of that Mass, it is: "Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison." As to the meaning and form of the words themselves:

"Latin" word: part of speech: root form: meaning: cognate:

Kyrie noun; vocative singular Kyrios Lord Church

eleison verb; imperative singular eleao to have mercy

Christe noun; vocative singular Christos Christ Christ

Explanatory notes:

1. In Greek and Latin the vocative case is used as the case of direct address, i.e. you may

use the vocative when you are addressing someone, in this case, the Lord.

2. An imperative is a command form, the strongest form of Biblical plea: Lord, have

mercy!

3. A cognate is a word in English that derives from the word in the original language.

The word "Church" actually comes into English, through German, ultimately from the

Greek word Kyrios, the Greek word for Lord.