The solemn procession began late one February evening. The soft tones of Gregorian chant guided the faithful down a long, darkened hallway as outside, the wind howled and the rain slanted against the windows. The young boy leading the procession carried a carefully-folded banner in his arms, his posture erect as befitted the ritual. Turning left, he stepped into a dimly lit room, against whose large glass window the rain pelted and the wind moaned to be let in. Sliding back a mirrored door, the boy deposited the banner in the recesses of a closet, not to be retrieved until Easter Vigil.
This scene – which took place in my home on Shrove Tuesday during an intense rainstorm – linked my family with the medieval tradition of burying the Alleluia, a practice that is being resurrected by Roman Catholic families interested in connecting with the historical Body of Christ. I discovered this ritual only a few days before we observed it, but have since discovered that other liturgical Christians also observe this tradition.
My handmade Alleluia banner, inspired by Catholic homeschooling blog, A Slice of Smith Life
Given that Alleluia – the Latinized form of the Hebrew Hallelujah – is a word of praise associated with joy and exultation, its use is excluded in Roman Catholic liturgy during Lent in order to maintain focus on the sacrifice of Christ. By fasting from this word, the faithful enter into one, long Good Friday. Makes sense, but why ritually bury the word?
In the early Church, writers like Tertullian encouraged the faithful to incorporate Alleluias into private prayer. Later, St. Jerome would praise those who sang the Alleluia as they toiled in the fields. Oarsman in the Roman Empire would repeat the Alleluia as a prayerful song, so that St. Augustine once remarked that the faithful should make Alleluia their sweet rowing song. Initially, the Alleluia appeared in the liturgy only during the joyful Easter season, but it gradually began to appear in Mass during other parts of the ecclesiastical year, except Lent (with the exception of the Eastern Catholic Churches).
In the eleventh century, Pope Alexander II decreed that the dismissal of the Alleluia for the Lenten season should be simply and solemnly marked on the eve of Septuagesima Sunday, that is, three Sundays before Ash Wednesday, or roughly seventy days before Easter. His stipulation that Alleluias should be inserted into the chanting of the Divine Office on Saturday evening inspired a slew of new Vespers hymns celebrating the Alleluia, the best known of which is an anonymous tenth-century hymn, “Alleluia dulce carmen” or “Alleluia Song of Gladness.” Some parishes inserted up to thirty extra Alleluias into the sacred text.
Over time, emotionally-charged medieval rituals of bidding farewell to the Alleluia emerged, prompted in part by Bishop William Durenti of Mende, France, one of the medieval period’s most renowned liturgical scholars. In his 1296 Rational divinorum officiorum (Rationale for the divine offices), an allegorical examination of the rites and worship of the Latin Church, he writes: “We part from the Alleluia as a beloved friend, whom we embrace many times and kiss on the mouth, head, and hand, before we leave.”
By the 15th century in France, taking leave of the Alleluia had evolved from hymns or extra repetitions of the word to an elaborate quasi-liturgical ceremony with choirboys as the main officiants. Some churches processed with an Alleluia-inscribed banner or a coffin-shaped plaque, entombing the Alleluia at the conclusion of the procession. A fifteenth-century statue book from the church of Toul in France describes one such tradition:
On Saturday before Septuagesima Sunday all choir boys gather in the sacristy during the prayer of the None, to prepare for the burial of the Alleluia. After the last Benedicamus [i.e., at the end of the service] they march in procession, with crosses, tapers, holy water and censers; and they carry a coffin, as in a funeral. Thus, they proceed through the aisle, moaning and mourning, until they reach the cloister. There they bury the coffin; they sprinkle it with holy water and incense it; whereupon they return to the sacristy by the same way (See The Abbey of Regina Laudis/The Season of Lent)
The act of “burying” the Alleluia came to be known as Despositio Alleluia or the deposition, a word associated with Christ’s own entombment, signaling the belief that what has been deposited into the earth will one day rise again. As St. John Cantius Church in Chicago mentions on their blog, the faithful departed were traditionally identified in Catholic cemeteries with “Depositus” or simply a D inscribed on their gravestones, in this way, “marked with the sign of faith” (from the Roman Canon) in anticipation of rising on the last day.
Image from St. John Cantius church website announcing this year’s schedule for Burying the Alleluia on February 15, 2026
Today, many Christians – in churches and in private homes – observe the nearly 1,000-year-old custom of burying the Alleluia for Lent on either the Sunday before Ash Wednesday or the Tuesday evening before Ash Wednesday, as in our household.
My children recently participated in their grandfather’s Requiem Mass and burial, with my sons serving as junior pallbearers alongside my husband; I discussed my dad’s beautiful death in my January post, Where O Death is Your Victory, Where O Death is Your Sting? As such, I hesitated to introduce a new Lenten tradition that might remind them of their recent sorrow, but when I mentioned it, they were immediately enthusiastic. And so I dedicated one morning to drawing and coloring an Alleluia banner inspired by the one I found on Catholic homeschooling blog, A Slice of Smith Life. That evening, my husband, children, and I each wrote a list of things on the back of the banner that we wanted to bury for Lent.
The dramatic SoCal rainstorm only added to the solemnity of our family ritual on Shrove Tuesday evening. My children turned out the lights, and with only the glow of my phone playing Gregorian chant to light our way, we processed down our long, narrow hallway with my youngest holding the banner. By introducing this new Lenten tradition right after burying my father, my hope is that I’m not only replacing their sorrowful funeral procession with a new memory, but also tangibly emphasizing that we will all rise again one day.
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