Our Lenten song is a simple arrangement of the prayer “Kyrie eleison”:
Kyrie eleison
Christe eleison
Kyrie eleison,
OR:
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
A lot of times we hear the term “mercy” and think of clemency, like what a judge shows a criminal. Or we think of forgiveness for wrong-doing. Or we think of a movie scene with a medieval peasant begging to be spared by an overbearing lord or knight. But what about band-aids?
This week, as we begin to learn our Lenten song, I will be handing out bandages to the children. Why? Because eleison does not only mean “mercy” in the senses listed above. It comes from the same idea as healing oil. Back in the day, people treated wounds by rubbing oil into them to soften them and promote healing. (Sort of like we might use Neosporin today.) The mercy which we ask of God is a healing grace, like oil poured in a wound.
“Mercy” also has an old association with mothering, the feeling a mother has for her child. “Mercy” is often translated “steadfast love,” or “lovingkindness” as well. In the Hebrew, the word for mercy is meant to invoke a very lasting sort of love that takes one in and does not let go, ever. Other nuances of “mercy” are rooted in these meanings.
We will talk a little about these big ideas of mercy in choir, but I encourage you do think about them and maybe talk them over at home as well. Our focus this week as we prepare for Lent will be simpler: Bandaid mercy, the grace that heals us.
For grown-ups, with our ability to abstract, healing grace can be a broad typology. The wounds of death and sin are cured by the medicine of immortality, the very presence of God among us, with us in the Eucharist to heal us. We recognize the pattern of wound and healing in lots of places in our lives, especially in Lent, when we get our annual check-up. During Lent, we see God the healer as well as how we might be sick and in need of healing. We see the lengths to which God the great physician goes to heal us, even death on the cross and rising again.
For the children this week, it is enough to know that God wants to heal us right here, right now, immediately. God’s desire to love us into health is what makes it possible for us to pray, “Lord, have mercy.”
- God’s healing grace makes us more open to healthy, loving relationships. What does it mean to soften our hearts?
- Show your children how oil makes their skin softer.
- How is it healing to know that God will not let you go?
- Talk to your children about their baptisms, when they were anointed as the priest said, “___, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” This Lent, try to remind them that this is what we mean when we say “mercy.”
