Litany
LITANY
A general supplication used in public worship to appease the wrath of the Deity, and to request those blessings a person wants. The word comes from the Greek “supplication, ” of “I beseech.” At first, the use of litanies was not fixed to any stated time, but were only employed as exigencies required. They were observed, in imitation of the Ninevites, with ardent supplications and fastings, to avert the threatened judgments of fire, earthquake, inundations, or hostile invasions. About the year 400, litanies began to be used in processions, the people walking barefoot, and repeating them with great devotion: and it is pretended that by this means several countries were delivered from great calamities. The days on which they were used were called Rogation days; these were appointed by the canons of different councils, till it was decreed by the council of Toledo, that they should be used every month throughout the year; and thus, by degrees, they came to be used weekly on Wednesdays and Fridays, the ancient stationary days for fasting. To these days the rubric of the church of England has added Sundays, as being the greatest day for assembling at divine service. Before the last review of the common prayer, the litany was a distinct service by itself, and used sometimes after the morning prayer was over; at present it is made one office with the morning service, being ordered to be read after the third collect for grace, instead of the intercessional prayers in the daily service.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
litany
Originally a supplicatory prayer, especially when liturgical or ceremonial; later, a liturgical prayer in which the clergy lead and the laity respond, the same form of response being repeated in a number of succeeding clauses, and usually being of a penitential character. A litany is a separate service in itself and as such is often said in processions. It is also used as a portion of the services on certain days. Litanies are to be used for public devotions and at public services only when approved by the pontiff for this purpose. Those not so approved may be used for private devotions only. Only five litanies are approved for public devotions:
Litany of Loreto
Litany of Saint Joseph
Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus
Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Litany of the Saints
New Catholic Dictionary
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Litany
(Lat. litania, letania, from Gr. lite, prayer or supplication)
A litany is a well-known and much appreciated form of responsive petition, used in public liturgical services, and in private devotions, for common necessities of the Church, or in calamities — to implore God’s aid or to appease His just wrath. This form of prayer finds its model in Psalm cxxxv: “Praise the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Praise ye the God of gods . . . the Lord of lords . . . Who alone doth great wonders . . . Who made the heavens”, etc., with the concluding words in each verse, “for his mercy endureth for ever.” Similar is the canticle of praise by the youths in the fiery furnace (Dan., iii, 57-87), with the response, “praise and exalt him above all for ever.” In the Mass of the Oriental Church we find several litanies in use even at the present day. Towards the end of the Mass of the catechumens the deacon asks all to pray; he formulates the petitions, and all answer “Kyrie Eleison”. When the catechumens have departed, the deacon asks the prayers: for the peace and welfare of the world, for the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, for the bishops and priests, for the sick, for those who have gone astray, etc., to each of which petitions the faithful answer “Kyrie Eleison”, or “Grant us, 0 Lord”, or “We beseech Thee.” The litany is concluded by the words, “Save us, restore us again, 0 Lord, by Thy mercy.” The last petitions in our Litany of the Saints, with the responses “Deliver us, 0 Lord” and “We beseech Thee hear us”, show a great resemblance to the Mass Litany of the Greek Church. In the Ambrosian or Milanese Rite two litanies are recited on the Sundays of Lent instead of the “Gloria in excelsis”. In the Stowe Missal a litany is inserted between the Epistle and Gospel (Duchesne, “Christian Worship”, London, 1904, 199). The Roman Missal has retained the prayers for all classes of people in the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday, a full litany on Holy Saturday, and the triple repetition of “Kyrie Eleison”, “Christe Eleison”, “Kyrie Eleison”, in every Mass. The frequent repetition of the “Kyrie” was probably the original form of the Litany, and was in use in Asia and in Rome at a very early date. The Council of Vaison in 529 passed the decree: “Let that beautiful custom of all the provinces of the East and of Italy be kept up, viz., that of singing with great effect and compunction the ‘Kyrie Eleison’ at Mass, Matins, and Vespers, because so sweet and pleasing a chant, even though continued day and night without interruption, could never produce disgust or weariness”. The number of repetitions depended upon the celebrant. This litany is prescribed in the Roman Breviary at the “Preces Feriales” and in the Monastic Breviary for every “Hora” (Rule of St. Benedict, ix, 17). The continuous repetition of the “Kyrie” is used to-day at the consecration of a church, while the relics to be placed in the altar are carried in procession around the church. Because the “Kyrie” and other petitions were said once or oftener, litanies were called planœ, ternœ, quinœ, septenœ.
When peace was granted to the Church after three centuries of bloody persecution, public devotions became common and processions were frequently held, with preference for days which the heathens had held sacred. These processions were called litanies, and in them pictures and other religious emblems were carried. In Rome, pope and people would go in procession each day, especially in Lent, to a different church, to celebrate the Sacred Mysteries. Thus originated the Roman “Stations”, and what was called the “Litania Major”, or “Romana”. It was held on 25 April, on which day the heathens had celebrated the festival of Robigalia, the principal feature of which was a procession. The Christian litany which replaced it set out from the church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, held a station at S. Valentino Outside the Walls, and then at the Milvian Bridge. From thence, instead of proceeding on the Claudian Way, as the heathens had done, it turned to the left towards the Vatican, stopped at a cross, of which the site is not given, and again in the paradise or atrium of St. Peter’s, and finally in the basilica itself, where the station was held (Duchesne, 288). In 590, when a pestilence caused by an overflow of the Tiber was ravaging Rome, Gregory the Great commanded a litany which is called “Septiformis”; on the preceding day he exhorted the people to fervent prayer, and arranged the order to be observed in the procession, viz, that the clergy from S. Giovanni Battista, the men from S. Marcello, the monks from SS. Giovanni e Paolo, the unmarried women from SS. Cosma e Damiano, the married women from San Stefano, the widows from S. Vitale, the poor and the children from S. Cæcilia, were all to meet at S. Maria Maggiore. The “Litania Minor”, or “Gallicana”, on the Rogation Days before Ascension, was introduced (477) by St. Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, on account of the earthquakes and other calamities then prevalent. It was prescribed for the whole of Frankish Gaul, in 511, by the Council of Orleans (can. xxvii). For Rome it was ordered by Leo III, in 799. In the Ambrosian Rite this litany was celebrated on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after Ascension. In Spain we find a similar litany from Thursday to Saturday after Whitsuntide, another from the first to third of November, ordered by the Council of Gerunda in 517, and still another for December, commanded by the synod of Toledo in 638. In England the Litany of Rogation Days (Gang-Days) was known in the earliest periods. In Germany it was ordered by a Synod of Mainz in 813. Owing to the fact that the Mass Litany became popular through its use in processions, numberless varieties were soon made, especially in the Middle Ages. Litanies appeared in honour of God the Father, of God the Son, of God the Holy Ghost, of the Precious Blood, of the Blessed Virgin, of the Immaculate Conception, of each of the saints honoured in different countries, for the souls in Purgatory, etc. In 1601 Baronius wrote that about eighty forms were in circulation. To prevent abuse, Pope Clement VIII, by decree of the Inquisition of 6 Sept., 1601, forbade the publication of any litany, except that of the saints as found in the liturgical books and that of Loreto. To-day the litanies approved for public recitation are: of All Saints, of Loreto, of the Holy Name, of the Sacred Heart, and of St. Joseph.
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BISHOP in Journal of Theological Studies (1906), 133; Römische Quartalschrift (1904), 13; PUNKES in Kirchenlex., s. v. Litanei; THILL in Pastor Bonus (1891), 217 sqq.; KELLNER, Heortologie (Freiburg, 1906), 143 sqq.; KRIEG in KRAUS, Real-Encyk., s. v. Litanei; BINTERIM, Denkwürdigkeiten, IV, I, 572 sqq.; Revue Bénédictine, III, 111; V, 152; SERARIUS, Litaneutici seu de litaniis libelli duo (Cologne, 1609).
FRANCIS MERSHMAN. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IXCopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Litany
(, entreaty), a word the specific meaning of which has varied considerably at different times, is used in the liturgical services of some churches to designate a solemn act of supplication addressed with the object of averting the divine anger, and especially on occasions of public calamity. Hooker, in his Ecclesiastical Polity (book 5, page 265), has the following: “As things invented for one purpose are by use easily converted to more, it grew that supplications with this solemnity for the appeasing of (God’s wrath and the averting of public evils were of the Greek Church termed litanies; rogations, of the Latins.”
The term litany for a supplicatory form of worship among the pagans was early adopted by Christian writers. In the fourth century we find such occasions as litanies connected with processions, the clergy and people in solemn procession using certain forms of supplication and making special entreaty for deliverance. Whether anything of this kind would have been ventured before Christianity became a “religio licia” (A.D. 270) may be doubted. The predominance of a Christian population, however, in certain localities, and the intervals of repose between persecutions, admit of their possibility at an earlier period. In these earliest developments, moreover, of the processional litany, whether before or during the fourth century, they rested, doubtless, upon an earlier Christian habit and custom that of special seasons of prayer and supplication. These, in some cases, would be by the assembled body of believers in their houses or places of assembling; in others, for purposes of safety from the fury of their enemies, in their individual homes and places of abode. Certainly the Church was not wanting in such occasions during the first centuries of her existence, when the course pursued by the disciples at Jerusalem (Act 12:5), and for similar reasons would need to be repeated. Occasions of this particular kind would of course pass away with the passing away of persecution. But others of a different character would take their place. As early, indeed, as the times of Tertullian and Cyprian we find allusions to Christian prayers, and fastings, and supplications for the removal of drought, the repelling of enemies, the moderation of calamities; and later, in the fourth and fifth centuries, we find the same thing, on a larger scale and in a more formal manner. Theodosius, preliminary to a battle, spent the whole night in fasting and prayer, and in sackcloth went with the priests and people to make supplication in all the churches. So, again, in the reign of one of his successors, a solemn litany or supplication on account of a great earthquake was made at Constantinople. In these last cases, the element, to which allusion has been made, that of the procession, was undoubtedly present, and so continued until the time of the Reformation; the name litany, indeed, being sometimes used simply to describe this part of it. as where seven litanies are directed by Gregory the Great to proceed from seven different churches (see below). The processions of the Arians in the times of Chrysostom, and the counter movement, on his part, by more splendid and imposing ones, to detract from any popularity which the Arians may have attained in this way, are described by Socrates. It is not at all improbable that in somewhat the same manner the hymns of Arius became circulated in Alexandria in the early part of the fourth century, and found lodgment in the minds of the populace.
The prevalence of litanies in the Western Church may be recognized after the beginning of the fifth century; and during the time of Charlemagne we find allusion to large numbers of them, to be attended to as a matter of special appointment. The Council of Orleans, A.D. 511, expressly recognizes litanies as peculiarly solemn supplications, and enjoins their use preparatory to the celebration of a high festival. In the Spanish Church, in like manner, they were observed in the week after Pentecost. Other councils subsequently appointed them at a variety of other seasons, till, in the seventeenth Council of Toledo, A.D. 694, it was decreed that they should be used once in each month. By degrees they were extended to two days in each week, and Wednesday and Friday, being the ancient stationary days, were set apart for the purpose. Gregory the Great instituted a service at Rome for the 25th of April, which was named Litacia Septiformis, because a procession was formed in it of seven different classes. This service is distinguished as Litania Major, from its extraordinary solemnity. The Litaniae Minores, on the other hand, are supposed by Bingham to consist only of a repetition of , the customary response in the larger supplications. “It was a short form of supplication, used one way or other in all churches, and that as a part of all their daily offices, whence it borrowed the name of the Lesser Litany, in opposition to the greater litanies, which were distinct, complete, and solemn services, adapted to particular times or extraordinary occasions. I must note, further, that the greater litanies are sometimes termed ‘exomologeses’ confessions because fasting, and weeping, and mourning, and confession of sins were usually enjoined with supplication, to avert God’s wrath, and reconcile him to a sinful people.” Du Cange cites a passage from the acts of the Colc. Cloveshoviense, A.D. 747, confirming the identity of litania and royatio, but showing that originally there was a distinction between litania and exomologesis. Johannes de Janua terms litany, properly, a service for the dead. But Du Cange, by the authorities he cites for the early litanies, hazards the assertion that they differ but little from those in modern usage. In the Western litanies two features are to be found not prevalent in the Eastern the invocation of saints, and the appointment of stated annual seasons for their use, as the rogation days of the Romish, and the tri- weekly usage of the English Church. There is, indeed, mention made of an annual litany in commemoration of the great earthquake in the reign of Justinian. But the general and present habit of the patriarchate of Constantinople has been and is to confine such services to their original purpose-extraordinary occasions.
Freeman (Principles of Divine Service, 2:325) insists that in its origin the litany is distinctly a “eucharistic feature,” a series of intercessions closely associated with the eucharistic sacrifice. So we find in the East, and so it was originally in the West also, one most notable feature being the pleading of the work of Christ in behalf of his Church. In a Syriac form given by Renaudot, the priest, taking the paten and cup in his right and left hand, commemorates
(1) the annunciation; (2) the nativity; (3) the baptism; (4) the passion; (5) the lifting up on the cross; (6) the life-giving death; (7) the burial; (8) the resurrection; (9) the session.
Then follows the remembrance of the departed, and then supplication for all, both living and departed, ending with three kyries and the Lord’s Prayer. This extended eucharistic intercession St. Ephraem the Syrian rendered into a very solemn hymn (comp. Blunt, Dict. of Doctr. and Hist. Theol. page 417).
As to the peculiar structure of litanies, which are prayers, certain features may be mentioned that distinguish them from other prayers (the collects and the so-called common prayers), for in the litany the priest or minister does not pray alone, the people responding after each separate petition. It is even not absolutely necessary that the minister should lead, as the whole may be divided between two choirs; for we must also notice that the litany, occupying a medium position between prayer and singing, may be sung or spoken, according to the custom of the place where it is used. Some compositors even Mozart, for instance sometimes treated it in the same manner as the usual Church chants (the Stabat Mater, Requiemn, etc.); but in this case, by losing the distinction between petitions and responses, the litany entirely changed its character. In the next place, it must be noticed that in all litanies preceding the Reformation there is great uniformity. They all begin alike Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, and end alike Agnus Dei, qui tollis, etc. In this respect they resemble the mass. A form of supplication somewhat resembling a litany exists in the Apostolical Constitutions; as the deacon named the subjects of petition, the people answered to each, Lord, have mercy. That of the Church of England begins with an invocation of the persons of the Trinity, but uses the old invocations in its progress and close. In their original purpose litanies were connected with fasting and humiliation, and were therefore inappropriate to the festal character of the Sunday service. In this respect their usage has been changed, and they are now part of divine service not only on Sundays, but on the most joyous seasons of Christian commemoration, such as Easter and Christmas day. One of the last efforts, indeed, in this kind of composition is the litany of Zinzendorf for Easter morning. The ordinary arrangement of litany material may be described as, first, the invocations, where we find the greatest difference between Romish and Protestant litanies; these are followed by the deprecations, from which this kind of service originally took its predominant character; next come intercessions for various classes and conditions of men, the whole closing with supplications for divine audience, and blessing upon the worshippers. The litany of the Church of Rome is that of Gregory, with subsequent additions, especially in the material of invocation to the body of Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and all the saints. There was an earlier form, bearing the name of Ambrose, agreeing in many respects with the Lutheran and English (see below). There was another, put in shape by Mamertius, bishop of Vienna, about the year 460, which was used by Sidonius of Arranque soon after, in connection with an invasion of the Goths, the annual usage of which the Council of Orleans enjoined. That of Gregory, however, composed during the next century, became the prevailing one, or rather the typical form of others in subsequent use.
The three different forms now in use in the Romish churches are called the “litany of the saints” (which is the most ancient), the “litany of the name of Jesus,” and the ” litany of Our Lady of Loretto.” Of these the first alone has a place in the public service-books of the Church, on the rogation days, in the ordination service, the service for the consecration of churches, the consecration of cemeteries, and many other offices. The one called by the name of litany of the saints bears its name from the prayers it contains to the saints for their help and intercession in behalf of the worshippers. Almost every saint in the calendar of the Romish Church has his particular form in the litany. The people’s response in the prayer is Orca pro nobis, “Pray for us.” The litany of Jesus consists of a number of addresses to Christ under his various relations to men, in connection with the several details of his passion, and of a djurations of him through the memory of what he has done and suffered for the salvation of mankind. The date of this form of prayer is uncertain, but it is referred, with much probability, to the time of St. Bernardino of Siena, in the 15th century. The litany of Loretto SEE LORETTO resembles both the above-named litanies in its opening addresses to the Holy Trinity and in its closing petitions to the “Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world;” but the main body of the petitions are addressed to the Virgin Mary under various titles, some taken from the Scriptures, some from the language of the fathers, some from the mystical writers of the mediaeval Church. Neither this litany nor that of Jesus has ever formed part of any of the ritual or liturgical offices of the Catholic Church, but there can be no doubt that both have in various ways received the sanction of the highest authorities of the Romish Church. Those of the Lutheran and English churches, which are very much alike, are derived from the same source, being shorter in that these invocations are expunged.
In the Church of England it was originally a distinct service, and seems to have been used at a different time of day from the ordinary morning service, and only on certain occasions. In 1544 it was given to the people in a revised form by Henry VIII. Upon its insertion in the Prayer-book published by Edward VI, A.D. 1549, the litany was placed between the communion office and the office of baptism, under the title “‘The Litany and Suffrages,” without any rubric for its use; but at the end of the communion office occurred the following rubric: Upon Wednesdays and Fridays the English litany shall be said or sung in all places, after such form as is appointed by his majesty’s injunctions, or as it shall be otherwise appointed by his highness.” In the revision of the Common Prayer in 1552, the litany was placed where it now stands, and the rubric was added to “be used on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and at other times when it shall be commanded by the ordinary.” So late as the last revision in 1661, the litany continued a distinct service by itself, used sometimes after the morning prayer (then read at a very early hour) was concluded, the people returning home between them. The rubric which inserts the litany after the third collect in morning prayer is formed from a similar rubric in the Scotch Common Prayerbook, with this difference, that the English rubric enjoins the omission of certain of the ordinary intercessional prayers; the Scotch rubric, on the other hand, states expressly, “without the omission of any part of the other daily service of the Church on those days.”
The litany of the German and Danish Lutherans closely resembles that of the Church of England and that of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America, and needs, therefore, no special mention here. The processional feature is still retained in the Greek and Roman litanies on special occasions, but is not their special accompaniment. Efforts towards its restoration in the English and American Episcopal Church have for the past ten years been in progress. Judging from the prevalent sentiment of the episcopate in both countries, and the tone of the last General Convention in this, the prospects of success are not very favorable. See Procter, Book of Common Prrayer, page 246 sq.; Palmer, Origines Liturgices, 1:264 sq.; Wheatly, Common Prayer, page 163 sq.; Dean Stanley in Good Words for 1868 (June); Coleman, Manual of Prelacy and Ritualism, page 392 sq.; Christian Antiq. page 661; Blunt, Dict. Doct. and Hist. Theol. s.v.; Eacdie, Ecclesiastical Dictionary, s.v.; Walcott, Sacred Archaeology, page 353. SEE LITURGY.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Litany
a solemn form of supplication to God. The word is derived from , supplication. At first the use of litanies was not fixed to any stated time; but they were employed only as exigencies required. They were observed in imitation of the Ninevites with ardent supplications and fastings, to avert the threatened judgments of fire, earthquake, inundations, or hostile invasions. The days on which they were used were called rogation days. Several of these days were appointed by the canons of different councils, till the seventeenth council of Toledo decreed that litanies should be used in every month. Thus, by degrees, these solemn supplications came to be used weekly, on Wednesdays and Fridays, the ancient stationary days in all churches. As to the form in which litanies are made, namely, in short petitions by the priest with responses by the people, St. Chrysostom derives the custom from the primitive ages, when the priest began and uttered by the Spirit some things fit to be prayed for, and the people joined the intercessions, saying, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. When the miraculous gift of the Spirit began to cease, they wrote down several of these forms, which were the original of our present litanies. St. Ambrose has left us one, which agrees in many particulars with that of our own church. About the year 400, litanies began to be used in processions, the people walking barefoot, and repeating them with great devotion. It is pretended that several countries were delivered from great calamities by this means. About the year 600, Gregory the Great, from all the litanies extant, composed the famous sevenfold litany, by which Rome, it is said, was delivered from a grievous mortality. This has served as a pattern to all the western churches since; and to it ours of the church of England comes nearer than that of the Romish missal, in which later popes have inserted the invocation of saints, which our Reformers properly expunged. These processional litanies having occasioned much scandal, it was decreed that in future the litanies should be used only within the walls of the church. Before the last review of the Common Prayer, the litany was a distinct service by itself, and used some time after the morning prayer was ended. At present it forms one office with the morning service, being ordered to be read after the third collect for grace, instead of the intercessional prayers in the daily service.