Eastertide Surprise
Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,
When I was getting ready to move to Canada, a wise mentor advised me, “Pay attention to what surprises you.” At my first Easter Vigil at St. Thomas’s in 2022, the Kyrie was rightly absent from the first Mass of Easter—no surprise there. The Mass proper began with the incipit, “Glory be to God on high.” What surprised me was finding the Kyrie restored to the Eastertide entrance rite on the subsequent Sundays. I’d been formed in a stream of Anglo-Catholicism that always omitted the Kyrie in Eastertide because the Kyrie is penitential in nature, and the dynamic of the Eastertide entrance rite should be, I was taught, indicative of the unmitigated joy of the Resurrection. The Kyrie, arguably, detracts from this liturgical dynamic.
Curious as to why we stuck with the Kyrie in Eastertide, I surmised it must be out of a desire to follow the rubric in the 1962 Book of Common Prayer, which, while it permits omitting the Kyrie from time to time, isn’t specific as to when. (Or if it is, I don’t know where—I’m sure someone can correct me.) But that prayerbook also maintains the English Reformation order of placing the Gloria after the Post-Communion Prayer and just before the Blessing, which is not part of our own Anglo-Catholic tradition, following as we do the shape of the pre-Reformation Western liturgy.
Fun Fact: In the first Book of Common Prayer, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer intended for the liturgy always to begin on a penitential note all year round, following Protestant notions of unworthiness, but always to end on a high note of thanksgiving, with the Gloria—even in the traditionally penitential seasons of Advent and Lent! One commentator I consulted said that Cranmer wanted to evoke the hymn sung at the end of the very first Last Supper. But Cranmer’s intent to keep the Gloria all year round was soon subverted by those long accustomed to omitting it in Advent and Lent, and then the later Anglo-Catholic liturgical reforms of the Reformation order put it back where it ostensibly “belonged,” at the front.
All of which goes to show that “Tradition” is never as monolithic as it often at first appears, from parish to province to universal Church.
When some members of the choir expressed surprise that I had omitted the Kyrie, I realized I had been remiss in making explicit the method behind my liturgical madness. It doesn’t come from personal preferences alone, but, as mentioned above, from my formation in a particular stream of the Anglo-Catholic tradition. Sometimes I fail to make that clear, and I hope it’s helpful (if you care about such things) to know where I’m coming from.
So my dictate that the Kyrie be omitted until Trinity Sunday has been scrupulously followed by our dedicated musicians, and I am so grateful for the gracious way they put up with what must seem at times to be my liturgical whims. (And sometimes that’s exactly what they are—whims.) But one of them expressed disappointment that this meant a favourite Kyrie would not be sung in Eastertide as originally planned. I’m also really grateful staff members feel free to share what they think and how they feel with me. And this expression of disappointment got me thinking about my own adorable brand of liturgical rigidity.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” That last word stings! Thus, to show I’m not entirely hidebound when it comes to liturgical conventions, I’m willing to make exceptions for good cause when requested and allow the singing of the Kyrie with its matching Gloria in Eastertide when it seems appropriate to our musicians. But in Eastertide, the Gloria is always the most important part!
Yours in Christ’s service,
Nathan J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector
