As Lent approaches, many people seldom have time to reflect on the curiosity of that tradition which removes the alleluia from any of our liturgies. I have strong memories of our parish taking a long “alleluia scroll” and folding it before the Ash Wednesday liturgy, and the dirty looks from the sanctuary when a misinformed music minister accidentally chose a song with the alleluia in it. When pressed, I suspect that most well-catechized Catholics would associate the change with the fasting that is proper to Lent but wouldn’t get much further than that. While this is certainly true, it might be easier to explain Lent’s lack of an alleluia by starting with a short explanation of the alleluia’s role during the rest of the liturgical year.
Curiously, the very first time in scripture that we hear the word “alleluia” is in David’s Psalms. Recall that upon their freedom from Egypt across the Red Sea, the Hebrews composed a song of praise to bless the Lord for his faithfulness, mercy, and goodness. Upon receiving that offering, the Lord commanded that in addition to the Passover meal, which was to be repeated eternally, the Hebrews were to sing this song constantly and teach it to their children so that the Jews would always remember his nearness and goodness. In their human frailty, they had forgotten this song when over and over again, they succumbed to their appetites for power, lust, and autonomy. It would not be until God raised up a shepherd boy and anointed him king, that Israel would hear that song of salvation again.
David’s Psalms are not just songs of praise by an individual theologian. They are, at their heart, a recapitulation of the entire experience of Israel with the God who never tires of being faithful to his chosen. In the psalms, Israel praises, repents, complains of feeling abandoned by God, prays for war and the death of its enemies, and most importantly, waits in expectation for that descendant of David who will rule the nations, a fact which is proclaimed every Sunday evening for Vespers when Psalm 110 begins “The Lord said to my master, sit at my right…”. The proclamation of these psalms is punctuated with this phrase “alleluia” (praise be God) because King David’s psalms reminded the Jews who had forgotten the song of the Red Sea that God had been faithful to his promises in the past and would be in the future that the Jews knew contained a Messiah. To sing David’s alleluias was not just to renew the memory of God’s mercy, but to hope that God would fulfill what King David could only hope for and see in a veiled way.
In every liturgy, except during Lent, Catholics sing the alleluia before the proclamation of the Gospel to acknowledge that God has done exactly that! Jesus, the new David has conquered death by death and has completed in his life, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, all that he had promised his chosen people. To sing the alleluia is to acknowledge that the Messiah has come in the Gospel read by the deacon. To sing the alleluia is to sing that in our presence are words of victory and fulfillment.
In Lent we remove the alleluia as a reminder that until the close of the Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday) we have no reason for a hope of fulfillment. Without the Resurrection of Easter Morning, we are left, like those first century Jews, in the ashes of our own sin. Burying or omitting the alleluia, liturgically speaking, is a symbol that the only way out of my sins is to follow the Son of Man into the tomb that destroys death because we are sure that it cannot contain the uncontainable for very long.
As Lent approaches, and you hear the lack of an alleluia, give yourself over to the death of Christ and remember the advice of G.K. Chesterton who once reminded us that Christians have no need to fear either mortal death or the death of our egos and sin, for we have a God who knows the way out of the grave. Alleluia for that.
Ruben Gilbert is Associate Director of the Office of Divine Worship for the diocese.