Litany of Saints on Ash Wednesday?
  • It seems appropriate, no? Would it be appropriate in place of the opening hymn?
  • See the Circular Letter Concerning Preparation and Celebration of Easter Feasts, no. 23. It's more fitting for the First Sunday of Lent.
  • Thank you!
  • In the Ordinariate it is customary to recite the Great Litany, which includes a number of petitions, on the First Sunday of Lent and of Advent
  • I was also going to suggest the Great Litany from the Ordinariate. Frankly, as long as it’s not Ashes, I don’t care.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • dhalkjdhalkj
    Posts: 61
    I've had great usefulness from a litany based on the B set of intercessions from the RCIA Rite of Election (Enrollment of names). It is much more focused to our Lenten disciplines than the general purpose Litany of Saints or the Anglican Great Litany.
    Thanked by 1a_f_hawkins
  • Dhalkj,

    Could you explain what you mean? It sounds as if you use the list of enrolled names (i.e., the candidates for RCIA reception) as the basis of a litany prayed on Ash Wednesday?

    Since none of the RCIA candidates are in heaven yet (because they're still alive, not because they're tabloid-headline-earning sinners) doesn't it strike anyone in your parish as a bit presumptuous?
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 684
    Chris, most RCIA candidates who will be confirmed have chosen a saints name. In my parish for NO Mass we have added that saints name to the litany if it isn't already listed.
  • Don,

    They may have chosen saints' names -- although your parish is, I suspect, the exception rather than the rule -- but the exercise in using these names in a unique edition of the litany could very easily be mistaken for declaring that everyone is a saint.
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,942
    RCIA 221 in relevant part:

    The singing of the Litany of the Saints is led by cantors and may include, at the proper place, names of other saints (for example, the titular of the church, the patron saints of the place or of those to be baptized) or petitions suitable to the occasion.

    That non-exclusive "for example" probably led to this this from Adoremus, not known to be a hotbed of conciliar progressivism:

    https://adoremus.org/2017/11/q-liturgically-appropriate-formally-allow-catechumens-choose-baptismal-name-candidates-select-confirmation-name/
  • dhalkjdhalkj
    Posts: 61
    My litany is more a troped Kyrie (for which I use Mass XVIII A Deus genitor alme)
    Here are some of the intercessions:

    Together may we fruitfully employ this season to renew ourselves: Kyrie
    May we find joy in daily prayer: Christe
    May we read your word and dwell on it in our hearts: Kyrie
    May we abstain with courage from everything that defiles the heart
    ...
    All very NO. And, as I said, my source was Form B of Intercessions at the Rite of Election of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. (Canadian Edition)
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    Are those quotations from Form B? I ask because they're not like the examples in the Roman Missal, in which the invocations are expressions of praise addressed to Christ.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,371
    These are intercessions, not the invocations from the start of Mass.
    Compare page 9 of https://www.dioceseofcleveland.org/files/resources/2021roepastorsguide.pdf
    and GS p451
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,942
    Btw, I consider the "give us this day our daily bread" in the (mentally recited) Our Father to be an appropriate hook for the specific intention topic for which the intercession is offered if I have nothing otherwise specific rising within my awareness at the time.