From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
I am wondering if there are limits to the trope-ability of the Kyrie. Today I attended a parish that my husband and I usually avoid — although it is probably our territorial parish — because of questionable liturgical practices that leave us on edge during Mass (priest holding hands with the altar girls behind the altar during the Our Father, for instance). Today, in between the standard parts of the Kyrie, the choir/a cantor inserted lines in the spirit of: “For all the times we have failed to be open-hearted and welcoming….”
I understood that tropes were supposed to enhance understanding of the theology of the Mass. This seemed to narrow our cry for mercy to a single issue. Is this licit or am I overly critical?
First, we might get into the idea of the Kyrie and tropes.
The Greek acclamation Kyrie eleison probably entered the Roman liturgy from the East by the 6th century and was firmly established by the time of St. Gregory the Great. Hence, it is one of the oldest elements of the Roman Rite. Its troping, however, took off in the medieval period. From about the 9th c. onward, musicians began inserting short texts, “tropes”, into established chants. In the Kyrie, the inserted phrases often identified Christ under particular titles or described His saving work, while the underlying Kyrie eleison remained intact. “Trope” comes from Greek tropos, meaning “a turn, direction, manner, or way” from trepein “to turn.”. In ancient rhetoric, a trope became a “turn” of expression, that is, a figurative use of language. In medieval liturgy, the term was applied to a textual or musical addition that “turned” or expanded an established chant by inserting explanatory or devotional phrases. Hence, a Kyrie trope is an added phrase attached to the fixed acclamation Kyrie eleison, usually elaborating who Christ is or what He has done.
Such troped Kyries became extremely elaborate in some medieval uses and were associated with named chant settings. After the Council of Trent, the reform of the Roman Missal greatly reduced them, favoring a more stable liturgical text. The Novus Ordo’s 3rd Form of the Penitential Act is a bit of archeologizing, a return to an older practice. One might ask if the true good of the people, as the Council Fathers required, was considered. But I digress. Anyway, brief Christological invocations are joined to Kyrie eleison.
So, yes, in the Novus Ordo, the Kyrie can be “troped,” but there are limits. Checking the USCCB’s GIRM, in Penitential Act Form C, the invocations are supposed to be addressed to Christ and to proclaim His saving work. USCCB liturgical guidance explicitly says they should not become a shortened examination of conscience.
So, something like, “Lord Jesus, you came to call sinners: Lord, have mercy” sort of works, but, “For all the times we have failed to be welcoming (to undocumented cultural enrichers who want to take our country and kill us…)” does not. The second example turns the Kyrie into a list of communal faults rather than an invocation of Christ. Another one that wouldn’t work would be “Lord Jesus, for using the A/C against Laudato si,…”. However, something like, “Lord Jesus, you endured the Cross and tomb so that we might be saved”, would fit the bill.
So the short answer is: yes, tropes are permitted, but they should be Christological invocations, not improvised mini-examinations of conscience and certainly not for virtue signaling and woke stuff.
Finally, here is an example of the troped-Kyrie in Gregorian chant, Mass Lux et Origo.
September 22nd, 2026
The Collect for Sunday Mass this week in the Extraordinary Form wound up in the Ordinary Form Missale Romanum as the Collect for Saturday in the 4th Week of Lent. Go figure. It had an ancient source in the Gelasian Sacramentary. For a change, the redactors of Fr. Bugnini’s and Card. Lercaro’s Consilium, with their scissors and glue pots, didn’t mess around with this prayer.
NickD on ASK FATHER: How do priests who dislike Communion on the hand cope with the obligation to do it? Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “@jhogan, I’ve heard the theory that a fair few of the post-Vatican II liturgical changes were because the clergy simply…”
