A Wonderful Invitation: Pastor Harrison Invites, and Encourages Us, to Pray the Litany Daily During Lent
Pastor Matthew Harrison, president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has extended a wonderful invitation and word of encouragement to us all: pray the Litany every day in Lent. I’d add to this, if you can, to do so on your knees.
Here is Pastor Harrison’s blog post on the Litany with his invitation. If I’m not mistaken, the picture in the post is the “prie-dieu” Pastor Harrison made for himself, recently, before he painted it.
Let’s Pray the Litany Daily: Kyrie Eleison!
I’ve long enjoyed praying the Litany. Luther did too. The prayer has an amazing longevity in the church, having found its form by the 6th century (Gregory the Great regularized it). Luther removed a few un-evangelical aspects, but retained the prayer nearly in toto, even rendering it into German and proving an original chant tone. Click HERE for a nice overview of the history of the Litany. Left to ourselves, bereft of texts as the foundation of our prayers, we are often left praying “Dear God, give me a mini-bike,” as I was wont to pray as a 12 year old – and am prone to pray even today!!!!!! Texts of the scriptures (Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments) and scriptural texts (Creed, Litany!) lay down God’s thoughts as the foundation of prayer, the tarmac if you will, from which our meditations may gently or quickly rise, aided by the Holy Spirit. The fulsome petitions of the Litany take us out of ourselves, to pray for the church, pastors and teachers, our enemies, women with children, the poor, the imprisoned and much much more. And all for mercy, growing out of the great petitions of the blind, the lame and the ill who comes to Jesus in the New Testament, “Lord have mercy!” “Kyrie eleison!” The Lord loves to have mercy. The Lord came to have mercy. The Lord continues to have mercy. You’ll find the litany in any standard Lutheran hymnal worth it’s salt. Pray it daily with me for Lent won’t you?
Pastor Matthew Harrison
Luther had a deep appreciation for the Litany. Of course, he rejected the invocation of the saints that had become a part of it, and he wanted to have the Litany sung in the church rather than at processions, but as early as 1519 he expressed his approval of it.1 During the reforms in Wittenberg under Karlstadt, 1521/22, it seems to have fallen into disuse. But the national emergency created when the Turks threatened the faith and freedom of all Christian lands prompted Luther to revive it. In his On War Against the Turks, begun in October, 1528, he insisted on the importance of believing prayer. “This might help if at Matins, Vespers, or after the sermon, we had the Litany sung or read in the church, especially by the young folk.”2 And shortly after, on February 13, 1529, he could report to Nicholas Hausmann, “We sing the Litany in church in Latin and in the vernacular; perhaps the music or melody of both versions will be published.”3 The same year saw the fulfilment of this promise. One month later he sent the first print of the German Litany with music to Hausmann. The accompanying letter referred to the fact that the Latin Litany Corrected had not yet been published,4 but this too followed before the end of the summer.
Luther’s Litanies with their appended collects are closely modeled after the Roman Litany of All Saints.5 Nevertheless, there are significant differences between them:
1. Luther omitted the invocations of the saints and the intercession for the pope and the departed.
2. Luther made the intercessions more specific than in the Roman form, as, e.g., in the petitions for faithful pastors, for the erring, for faithful laborers, etc.6
3. Luther simplified the music, especially for the responses.
LW 53.154
Here is the Litany:
THE LITANY
L: O Lord,
C: have mercy.
L: O Christ,
C: have mercy.
L: O Lord,
C: have mercy.
L: O Christ,
C: hear us.
L: God the Father in heaven.
C: have mercy.
L: God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
C: have mercy.
L: God the Holy Spirit,
C: have mercy.
L: Be gracious to us.
C: Spare us, good Lord.
L: Be gracious to us.
C: Help us, good Lord.
L: From all sin, from all error, from all evil;
From the crafts and assaults of the devil; from sudden and evil death;
From pestilence and famine; from war and bloodshed; from sedition and from rebellion;
From lightning and tempest; from all calamity by fire and water, and from everlasting death:
C: Good Lord, deliver us.
L: In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death; and in the day of judgment:
C: Help us, good Lord.
L: We poor sinners implore You
C: to hear us, O Lord.
L: To rule and govern Your holy Christian Church; to preserve all pastors and ministers of Your Church in the true knowledge and understanding of Your wholesome Word and to sustain them in holy living;
To put an end to all schisms and causes of offense; to bring into the way of truth all who have erred and are deceived;
To beat down Satan under our feet; to send faithful laborers into Your harvest; and to accompany Your Word with Your grace and Spirit:
C: We implore You to hear us, good Lord.
L: To raise those who fall and to strengthen those who stand; and to comfort and help the weakhearted and the distressed:
C: We implore You to hear us, good Lord.
L: To give to all peoples concord and peace; to preserve our land from discord and strife; to give our country Your protection in every time of need;
To direct and defend our president and all in authority; to bless and protect our magistrates and all our people;
To watch over and help all who are in danger, necessity, and tribulation; to protect and guide all who travel;
To grant all women with child, and all mothers with infant children, increasing happiness in their blessings; to defend all orphans and widows and provide for them;
To strengthen and keep all sick persons and young children; to free those in bondage; and to have mercy on us all;
C: We implore You to hear us, good Lord.
L: To forgive our enemies, persecutors, and slanderers and to turn their hearts; to give and preserve for our use the kindly fruits of the earth; and graciously to hear our prayers:
C: We implore You to hear us, good Lord.
L: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
C: we implore You to hear us.
L: Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,
C: have mercy.
L: Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,
C: have mercy.
L: Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,
C: grant us Your peace.
L: O Christ,
C: hear us.
L: O Lord,
C: have mercy.
L: O Christ,
C: have mercy.
L: O Lord
C: have mercy. Amen.
A most edifying Lenten practice in which I will gladly join. The Litany is a treasure.
Wonderful idea and practice; I will take this to heart for my Lenten devotions. Thank you, President Harrison!
I’m even happier that we have a synodical president who makes recommendations like this than I am about the recommendation itself.
When I first heard of “The Litany” as a Lutheran, my first thought was, whadya mean THE Litany, which one? Growing up preconciliar RC, there were a bunch of them, and “The Litany” seems to be a Litany of the Saints without the Saints. Litania sanctorum was by far the most common one, so that makes sense. If anyone is feeling real hard core and wants to do it in Latin, game on!
All the litanies are ultimately derivative of the Kyrie, which itself is all that remains in the Western liturgy of what is known as the First Litany in the Eastern liturgy. And it is there that I am most happy about recent Lutheran usage re litanies. Pre Vatican II we were taught that the Kyrie is actually all that is left, just the responses, to what was a longer prayer of petitions, then Vatican I tried to Greek it back up in the novus ordo but made of it not a petitionary prayer but a penitential one as an alternative to the Confiteor or Confession of Sin — for the times me have (insert sin of choice), Lord have mercy etc — and my previous synod in their current worship book in the Vatican II knock-off followed suit by putting “Lord have mercy” etc before the Absolution, but in DSI and its predecessors from the miserable LBW on it’s done right, not as complete restoration of the First Litany, but the invitation “In peace let us pray to the Lord” followed by the first few petitions and responses of the First Litany, which does restore the character of the Kyrie as a litany.
Pastor,
Count the Foxxes in!
Make that Vatican II, not Vatican I. Oh well, we were told at the time that the one just finished the work of the latter, even though it stood it on its head. Well, in Rome, what is black to-day is white to-morrow but nothing REALLY changed you know.
An excellent idea! I will include that in our Vespers tomorrow, Ash Wednesday. After the Imposition of the Ashes, during the prayers. Thank you, Rev. Harrison! -RevSeth@Grace, Manila, The Philippines.
The Litany posted is not the same as the one in the LSB. Unless I’m missing something the petition, “By the mystery of Your holy incarnation…” I’m not trying to point out an error or anything like that. Just wondering about the difference. I pray the Litany regularly and I receive great comfort in knowing that God does have mercy!
Paul,
This version leaves out the powerful grounding of the prayer in Christ: “By the mystery of your holy incarnation. . . By your agony and bloody sweat.” That looks like just an accidental omission. But this is the version going around. Could you correct it? Could you go so far as to make available the full version in the LSB, complete with the Lord’s Prayer, collects, and individual petitions?
I think this is a great thing for us to be doing.
Whoops, I’ll get that fixed. I picked up this text off the Internet.
Using these ancient prayers, the product of experienced Christians, expresses our oneness in faith and shape our own piety (practice of our religion). Luther did not reject the faith he inherited; he affirmed which parts expressed the truth and rejected that which obscured the truth. We have our own past to evaluate. Thank you, Reverend President, for this invitation!
@Gene Veith
That would be great! I second this. I was looking for a document this morning, in fact, with the daily collects in it and couldn’t find one. Such would be extremely helpful.
Haley, I would highly recommend you buy a copy of the Treasury of Daily Prayer. It not only contains the whole litany, but a wealth of other resources that will enrich your daily prayer life.
http://www.cph.org/p-11350-treasury-of-daily-prayer-regular-edition.aspx?SearchTerm=Treasury%20of%20Daily%20Prayer