well.. our Psator is being installed on that Feast Day .. I thought I could just set it to a chant .. but was hoping for other alternatives.

thanks Liam

For some reason, I want to do a tacky progressive version of this...

John, eater of locusts....
John, mildly schizophrenic...
John, poorly dressed...
John, probably sunburned...

I'm not sure what you mean about "mimic[king] various portions of the Mass" -- if you are talking about the Kyrie (six-fold) and Agnus Dei, those are part of all the other litanies as well.

I will say, though, I'm surprised that "John, greatest of all born of woman" was not one of the invocations.

The format of this litany is precisely identical to the format of, say, the Litany of St. Joseph. (Or do you mean to say that it would be weird to use any litany as an addition to the liturgy? I think I would agree with that.)

Well, the regulation of the litanies permitted for public liturgy kinda goes with the regulation of persons who can be included in the Litany of Saints and be portrayed specifically (rather than generically) in art for veneration.

What about good old Ut Queant Laxis as an alius cantus aptus?

Chris

I thought it was more an effort to have a limited number of approved prayers to be used during Benediction, or other semi-Liturgical function.

We can then have a Benediction manual that is not too big. Also local prayers have been approved and are found in the back of Benediction manuals, the English edition has several prayers not found in say Italian editions.

How many of these 80 Litanies were approved for local use?

Also my understanding of public use, is during Benediction or Liturgical Procession. I am sure that Private use allows the prayer to be said by a group of people in a church.

Our Soldality uses the Litany of the 5 Holy wounds by Bld. J H Newman, as part of our approved prayers.

In the New rite is this really an issue? can we not have any suitable (or even unsuitable) prayer said whenever someone feels it appropriate.

I just noticed that this litany does not have the usual "Christ hear us; Christ graciously hear us." And it repeats "have mercy on us" at the "Lamb of God..." part at the end instead of the usual "spare us O Lord" etc. Perhaps this is a very ancient Litany? It follows the Maronite form in the triple "have mercy on us" at the beginning and at the end of it.

Fellow musica sacra members, your views are helpful. Thank you for the reflection.
It is inspiring to find a sympathetic ear in others. Perhaps in the future, there were will be a reexaminging of the wisdom in the formal ban of litanies, assuming it is still in effect. In the near future I shall inquire of a knowledgeable church hierarch whether this is remains to be.

I do not think that Eucharistic adoration in the same form it took by 20th century, was especially common or popular before the reformation outside specific religious fraterntities/monasteries and corpus christi feast after pentecost. Eucharistic adoration has appeared to me to be greatly magnified in popularity throughout the year in the post-reformation period. I am not understanding how certain litanies are incompatible with "Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament". The concept of Eucharistic adoration is praiseworthy and salvific, but the necessity of visually seeing the Eucharistic host, seems to be an unnecessary sympton of the fight against protestantism heresy. To the extent that the Eucharist is not veiled and is NOT a mystery and discourages traditional church architectural barriers such as rood screens and curtains, it seems to me to be a minor form of abuse. Nevertheless I too participate in eucharistic adoration. The byzantine rite has a eucharistic procession every single Sunday, forever, but it is always veiled in with paten and altar clothes etc..

In the Baroque architecture of the Counter-Reformation the high altar with tabernacle was the focus of the worshippers’ attentions. Churches were built without rood screens in front of the sanctuary, and with as few pillars as possible, in order not to interfere with the congregation’s view of the altar, the elevation, and the monstrance or the tabernacle where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved.

Far from being influenced by Jansenism, before there even was a man named Cornelius Jansen, the Catholic Reformation exalted eucharistic adoration in order to counter the Protestant denial of the Real Presence. Equally important, however, Trent also condemned precisely that highly pessimistic Protestant view of human nature that Jansenism came to embody.
- See more at: http://www.adoremus.org/1009Hitchcock.html#sthash.p1wDg50A.dpuf

Benediction is often employed as a conclusion to other services, e.g. Vespers, Compline, the Stations of the Cross, etc., but it is also still more generally treated as a rite complete in itself. If

one sings various vespers for whatever proper of time or saint vespers liturgical calendar falls on, why not related litanies connected to that particular day if such specific connection coincides?

The comparison to sequences is superficially similar, but seemingly irrelevant because Mt. Calvary Anglican Use Catholic Church sings every single medieval sequence used in England for every single feast day that they have cantors at, and they do it well.

I am with you Adam on the sequences, but there was never condemnation of them. (Why else were they still used in various religious orders and dioceses, especially cathedrals, priories/monasteries that continued to use their ancient graduals that were never abrograted into the 19th century).

Sequences became rare not because they were banned from being used, but because they were longer printed in the newer graduals or newer missals. At the most one can say is that they were banned from being printed in most newer graduals. However as I am uncertain any request was made for them to be reprinted, I am uncertain that is even true.

(Dominicans and franciscans did continue to print a few more sequences in some of their missals into the 20th century, as you will see from the Franciscan Graduale Romano Seraphicum. http://media.musicasacra.com/books/graduale_romano_seraphicum.pdf

As far as I can tell there are up to 20 Sequences still in Liturgical use (for the EF), this includes the 5 found in the Graduale Romanum 1962. The Benedictines have two Sequences one St. Scholastica and another for St. Benedict. The Dominicans still use the sometime Christmas Sequence Laetabundus, and I think one for St. Dominic. I am sure the other older religious orders also have Sequences. Also certain local feasts also have Sequences (only for use in certain places) At least one can be found in the online Missale Romanum 1957 ed. on the Congregation of Clergy website. I am sure there are a few more.

Of course most Sequences were omitted from the Trent Missal, but of course some of these can be found in approved books such as Cantus Selecti, Antiphonarium Romanum 1949, and the Franciscan book linked above and its companion for Benediction.

There is no problem using any of these former sequences for Benediction, Liturgical Processions, and even during Mass at the Offertory / Communion (after the Proper!). They of course cannot be used as a Sequence in the EF.

I do note that recently choirs were singing these Sequences in the N.O. as the suitable Hymn before the Gospel (what would Bugnini say!).

The problem is with Litanies, only a few are (were?) authorised for PUBLIC Liturgical use, I think this means during Benediction or other public Liturgical ceremony (in the EF). I have not heard of any restrictions for services in the New Rite, and wonder if the classification of Prayers for Public / Private use has been abandoned.

I am sure that most Catholics will not have heard of any Classification of Prayers... not that this is a good way of finding out about Church legislation.