"I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh…" (Genesis 9:13)
In Benjamin Britten's setting of the Chester mystery play Noye's Fludde, the animals enter the ark singing "Kyrie eleison" - Lord, have mercy - and, after forty days of floating above the flooded earth, they joyfully walk out onto the dry earth singing, "Alleluia!" Now, for forty days (minus Sundays), we will undertake a journey singing "Kyrie eleison" in the Great Litany, while moving toward that day of springtime newness, when we can again sing "God be praised!" - Alleluia!
Balthasar Fischer writes: "…even so brief a prayer as Kyrie eleison follows the general rule that praise and thanksgiving come first and that petition flows from these. Because you are our Lord, who has passed victoriously through death to life, therefore we pray you: have mercy on us and on the whole world. The petition means more than "Help us!' It means: 'Take all of us with you on your journey through death to life.'"
Take all of us with you, O Christ, on your journey through death to life. Amen
MAKE AN ALTAR, A PLACE FOR PRAYER.
TO LISTEN TO THE BRITTEN, GO TO www.youtube.com/watch?v= kan4oDbuUJM (ENTRY OF THE ANIMALS: 4TH VIDEO OF 9)
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