The Litany: A Gateway to Prayer

The Litany, also known as the General Supplication, is the oldest portion of the Book of Common Prayer. It was first published, with its accompanying music, in 1544, as a special supplication for the English nation then at war with France and Scotland. Archbishop Cranmer prepared the Litany at the request of King Henry VIII. It is the oldest liturgical service in the English vernacular.

The Litany has fallen on hard times since the nineteenth century. It has lost favor with Anglican clergy and consequently few Anglican congregations are familiar with it. In A Parson’s Handbook, in a footnote at the bottom of page 249, Percy Dearmer who championed the more frequent use of the Litany in his own day points to the reader’s attention:

There has been a widespread idea that the Litany, so beautiful a part of the Prayer Book, is wearisome, and in consequence a most regrettable tendency to omit it. It may be wearisome when sung in the usual dragging and monotonous way, but not when its beauty is brought out by proper rendering. On Wednesdays and Fridays, and on Festivals (p. 446), the priest may well kneel and read it without note, which takes but little time, and is most devotional. Then on Sundays it can be sung to the beautiful plainsong of the Sarum Processional (The Litany and Suffrages with the Musick from the Sarum Processional: from the Oxford Press, 95 Wimpole Street, W.I), which, of course, should be sung after the manner of good reading, and not in the style of chanting which a modern writer has compared to ‘an elephant waltzing’. In this setting there is some more elaborate music, but only in the anthem and following suffrages, which are sung by the chanters. The points of the service are fully brought out when it is sung to the old tones and properly divided up between chanters, priest, and people; still more, when it is sung in procession, as it may be on ordinary Sundays. In churches where it is usually said or sung at the Litany-desk, it might be sung in procession on Rogation Sunday.

The Litany is very ancient form of prayer, its use in the Christian Church going back as far as the Fourth Century AD. The Litany-form predates Christianity and is found in the Old Testament, in the Book of Psalms. The Litany is longer than other forms of prayer because it is the most comprehensive form of prayer in the Prayer Book. It covers a wide range of concerns....

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