Litanies

LITANIES. - I. GENERAL. - The term (from λιτανεία "prayer") has the general sense of prayer and even more that of supplication or prayer of intercession. Stylistically it appears as a concise formula through which the Christian assembly joins in the prayer of the sacred minister, intimately sharing its holy intentions.

This practice spread very early in both East and West, soon becoming the prayer of the faithful. A trace of it has been sought in St. Paul's first letter to Timothy (2:1-3) and in St. Clement of Rome's letter to the Corinthians (cf. G. Morin, in Analecta Maredsolana, 2 [1914], pp. 54-57); Justin also speaks of it (I Ap., chaps. 65-67). Many others testify from the 4th century onward to its existence everywhere and to its precise place in the Mass, immediately before the Offertory. The prayer concluded with the kiss of peace exchanged among all those present. In the formularies preserved in liturgical monuments one notes how, amid the variety of formulas, a common, simple, precise schema persists, probably the original one, alongside a common stylistic form, consisting of an exhortation or invitatory with stylized phrases ("let us pray to God for... that...") to which the assembly responded with the Greek formula Kyrie eleison or the Latin Domine miserere. The schema was then regularly composed of two groups: a) prayer for the Church, for the persons of the ecclesiastical hierarchy (bishop, presbyters, deacons), the virgins and the widows; b) prayers for the emperor or king and the peace of the world; for those placed in afflictions and dangers: the sick, travelers, sailors, exiles, prisoners, those condemned "ad metalla", etc. Moreover, the uniformity of style and schema was already affirmed by St. Prosper of Aquitaine around 440 (PL 51, 245). Proof that they were truly of every day are the Orationes solemnes of Good Friday, even though they have no connection with that day. Pope Gelasius (492-96) gave a new formula (Deprecatio Gelasiana) and a new place to the old Oratio fidelium, probably moved by reasons of greater correspondence to the constitution of the Church at the end of the 5th century. The formula has been transmitted by Alcuin; the new place was at the beginning of the Mass before the readings. St. Gregory the Great introduced other novelties: he kept the Deprecatio Gelasiana only for solemn days, perhaps because it was long, having it omitted in daily Masses in its deprecative part (the 1st), keeping the supplicative part (Kyrie eleison), introducing himself, or, perhaps better, fixing the use of alternating it with the Christe eleison. But the very strong development, in these centuries (6th-9th), of the offertory rites, the remembrance of the offerers that was introduced into them, the mention made in the Canon of the names of persons belonging to the ecclesiastical and political hierarchy and of those most to be remembered in the celebration of individual Masses, brought about the disappearance (the documents from the 6th to the 9th century no longer speak of it) in the Roman rite of the Oratio fidelium, of which the only remembrance remained in the Kyrie sung before the Gloria in excelsis for the form introduced by Gelasius, and in the Oremus, recited without a following prayer before the Offertory, for the primitive one: so at least thought Duchesne (Origines du culte chrétien, 5th ed., Paris 1925, p. 175), not followed by Bishop and Wilmart (Le génie du rit romain, ibid. 1920, pp. 88-90), who hold that this Oremus is a remembrance of a prayer after the Gospel still preserved in the Ambrosian rite. The latter has preserved for the Lenten Sundays two alternating formulas of the Oratio fidelium immediately after the entrance (Introit), with archaic characteristics, as the analysis of the melody shows, and the presence of a prayer for those condemned "ad metalla", a penalty abolished in 230. The place it occupies today contrasts with the testimonies of the 4th century that locate it before the Offertory and must be the fruit of the reform carried out in Rome by Gelasius I.

Both in the Roman and in the Ambrosian rite the Oratio fidelium had a version, brought about by Gallican influences, that may be called psalmic, because the ancient petitions, brief and concise but of ecclesiastical source, were replaced by others with the same characteristics but of biblical, predominantly psalmic, source, and in this new guise introduced into the office in the "little hours".

II. THE MAJOR LITANY

It was a procession that took place in Rome from St. Lawrence in Lucina to St. Peter's. Since the pope and the entire pontifical court took part in it, it acquired a character of solemnity above the other processions such that already in the time of Gregory the Great (PL 77, 1329) it was called the greater litany. Held on April 25 (for this reason they would also be called litanies or processions of St. Mark), it was the Christian version of the pagan processions held in spring in the countryside to implore from the gods, and later from God through the intercession of the saints, the good success of the sowings. The pagan one traveled along the Via Flaminia and, having reached a small grove near the Milvian Bridge, the flamen Quirinalis sacrificed to Robigus the entrails of a dog and a sheep. According to G. Belet (Ration. div. off., ch. 123), Pope Liberius (352-66), converting it into a Christian one, preserved the itinerary and replaced the sacrifice with a station at St. Peter's. The procession had a festive tone that changed to penitential in the Middle Ages; at the end of the 12th century it still had a character of great solemnity and took place from the Lateran to the Vatican.

Through the usual Roman influences the greater litany was copied in other cities. For Milan, a diploma of 957 and Beroldus in the 12th century (ed. Magistretti, p. 122) speak of it, with a procession of the archbishop and the clergy from the Cathedral to St. Victor and then to the adjoining chapel of St. Gregory, for which reason it was called the greater litany, a title already possessed by the triduan litanies. If in Rome and Milan the procession disappeared (in Milan today it takes place in the Cathedral as a simple rite), it nevertheless remained in the countryside.

III. MINOR LITANIES

Their institution is attributed to St. Mamertus, bishop of Vienne in the Dauphiné, who, as Gregory of Tours recounts (Hist. Franc., II, 34), around 470, following an earthquake and other calamities, "appropinquante Ascensione Domini, indixit jejunium triduanum in populo cum gemitu et contritione," accompanying it with a procession that halted at various churches of the city. This was a form of penance and propitiation already practiced, and over the centuries others would be organized. But perhaps because of the severity of the disasters, which would also explain the introduction of penitential days into the joyful Easter season; or because of its careful organization, this triduum became a custom to such an extent that a few decades later Caesarius of Arles (d. 543) could say: istos tres dies regulariter in toto mundo celebrat Ecclesia (Sermo 173), even though, in fact, at the end of the 7th century they were still unknown in England, in Germany and in Rome, where they were introduced by Leo III (795-816). By the 8th century they were by then established in the liturgical Ordinarium of all the principal churches (cathedrals and baptismal churches only; urban and rural parishes had to assemble respectively at the cathedral and at the baptismal church).

In individual Churches, particular ceremonies were added to the general rite. M. Righetti (Storia liturgica, II, Milan 1947, p. 205) recalls the custom in Liguria of carrying in the three processions a banner with a dragon in three depictions succeeding one another over the three days and illustrating its defeat (1 cum cauda erecta; 2 cum cauda aliquantulum inclinata; 3 cum cauda pianissima). In Padua the same custom, but on the third day the banner was thrown into a canal. In Milan, on the other hand, the penitential character was affirmed on the first day by the distribution of ashes on the heads of the clergy and the faithful and by then going in pilgrimage barefoot and wearing hairshirts. In the long processions, which in some places lasted until late afternoon, psalms were sung, later (7th century) changed into antiphons, some of them in honor of the mysteries and the saints to whom the churches where the procession halted were dedicated, also to grant a little rest and to allow time for some reading. At Rouen, Milan, Vercelli, and Genoa a Mass was added, but only in the part for the catechumens; in the last church the Mass of the faithful was then celebrated.

In some Churches the three days were assigned to another period. The Council of Girona in 517 had established that Spain should celebrate the litanies on the last three days of the week of Pentecost; in Milan on the first three days of the week after the Ascension, still however within the Easter season, when, according to the doctrine of St. Ambrose, no fasting should be practiced; for this reason St. Arialdo fought the practice as an innovation, but perhaps it was not, and it appeared so to him only because it had long fallen into disuse through negligence. Since the introduction of the litanies in Milan by St. Lazarus on the occasion of Attila's invasions is legendary, some have thought of St. Eusebius, basing themselves on a testimony of the 16th century and on another much vaguer one of the 13th century; in any case one cannot go outside the period of the 5th-7th centuries. The itineraries were later adapted to urban modifications: the best known are those of Archbishop Odelpert in the 9th century, of Archbishop Otto in 1284, and of St. Charles in the 16th century.

At times they gave rise to disorders condemned in many synods, which nevertheless always strongly recommended the pious practice, which disappeared as a procession almost everywhere in the last century, remaining as a prayer of the Office.

IV. LITANIES OF THE SAINTS

It consists of a very ancient formulary (some elements date from the 3rd century) of the Oratio fidelium, which in the Middle Ages was preceded by a list of saints arranged according to the same criterion as the Canon of the Mass, and whose selection was inspired by the local commemorations of the great Roman martyrs. At first very short, as is still preserved in the Ordo of St-Amand, it later underwent a notable development, as can already be seen in the Gregorian Sacramentary, contained in cod. Ottobonianus 313 (9th century). The other Churches and the famous monasteries of antiquity each had their own litany, sometimes made up almost entirely of the names of the saints whose illustrious relics or memorials were kept there. But the Roman form ended by prevailing and becoming definitively established in all the Western Churches, except Milan, whose litanies consist only of the names of the saints, and which has the custom of chanting them in the rites of Baptism and of funerals, in order to invoke their help at the two most important stages of life.

V. LAURETAN LITANIES

It can be asserted only improperly that they go back to the first Christian centuries. Especially in Eastern writers, lists of graceful titles for the Most Holy Mary are frequent, and these constituted a rich body of material for inspiration. In a manuscript from Mainz of the 12th century one reads: Letania de domina nostra Dei Genitrice Virgine Maria. Oratio valde bona cettidie pro quacumque tribitudine dicenda est. And the oldest recension known today, followed by others of the 15th century, are all inspired as a model by the litanies of the saints. Toward the end of the 1400s they assume new forms: with the deprecations and the particular prayer intentions suppressed, they take on the dress and the name they have because of the distinct place they always held in the sanctuary of Loreto. The author and the date of composition are not known; the text is inspired by Sacred Scripture and the Fathers. The first documents that speak of them at Loreto are from 1531, 1547, 1554; they were officially approved by Sixtus V in 1587. To better guarantee their stability and unaltered preservation, with three decrees (of 1631, 1821, 1839) the Sacred Congregation of Rites forbade any addition without the permission of the Holy See; Benedict XV during the First World War introduced the invocation: Regina pocis, ora pro nobis and Pius XII, on the occasion of the dogmatic definition of the Assumption of the Virgin: Maria in coelum assumpta (AAS, 42 [1950], p. 795). The introduction and the closing, identical to those of the saints, recall the first origin of the litany. From the 16th century onward, other litanies of the Madonna were written, some even after the prohibition of Clement VIII in 1601; but they were short-lived and had almost no resonance, except for the "new litanies" at Loreto in 1575, which likewise began their decline when an attempt was made to spread them everywhere, requested of Gregory XIII and not granted.

VI. LITANIES OF THE SACRED HEART

Some references to these are found in the writings of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. She knew two forms of them: the one composed by Sister Joly of the Visitation of Dijon around 1686, translated and published in Latin in 1689; and those of Mother de Soudeilles, superior of the Visitation of Moulins, printed in 1687. A third was composed by Father Croiset and inserted into the second edition of his La devozione al Cuore di Gesù. Others followed, but all of them without distinction had the character of private devotion. The initiative for an official approval seems to be attributed to Cardinal Perraud, bishop of Autun, who presented a final version of 33 invocations drawn largely from the preceding litanies and arranged in a prescribed order. They were approved by the Sacred Congregation of Rites with a decree of 27 June 1898.

VII. OTHER LITANIES

The litanies of the dying from the Ordo commendationis animae (v. ANIMA, RACCOMANDAZIONE dell'); the litanies of the Most Holy Name of Jesus approved by Leo XIII on 16 January 1886 (Acta S. Sedis, 18 [1885-86], pp. 509-11); the litanies of St. Joseph approved by Pius X on 18 March 1909 (AAS, 1 [1909], pp. 290-92).

Enrico Cattaneo