Why we need the Litany in Common Prayer

The placing of the Litany in the books of the Prayer Book tradition is significant.  In 1662, Ireland 1926, PECUSA 1928, and Canada 1962, the Litany follows the orders for Morning and Evening Prayer.  It is bound up with Mattins and Evensong.  Even where the rubric directing its use every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday has been removed - as in PECUSA 1928 - the placing of the Litany alongside the orders for Mattins and Evensong indicates that it is to be regarded and used as a regular feature of Common Prayer.

While TEC BCP 1979 retains this position for the Litany, this is rarely the case in contemporary Anglican service books.  In the CofE's Common Worship: Daily Prayer, for example, is buried away under 'Prayers', following a large number of forms of intercessions, seasonal acclamations, and smaller litanies.  Nothing marks it as a regular part of Common Prayer.  Indeed, there is no rubric directing its use on particular days.  Canada's Book of Alternative Services places the Litany as part of 'The Divine Office', but has 5 sections separating Evening Prayer and the Litany, a full 66 pages.  In the CofI BCP 2004 it is also the case that 5 sections separate the Litany from the daily office, 53 pages.  To add insult to injury, the 'Service of the Word' provision - a concept destructive of the practice of Common Prayer - is actually placed before the Litany.  

The ordering of such service books - in stark contrast to that seen in the Prayer Book tradition - explicitly removes the Litany from the Church's Common Prayer.  It is set aside, barely tolerated, but clearly not envisaged to be a regular feature of the Church's prayer.  To illustrate this, consider the contrast.  In my copy of the CofI's BCP 1926, the Litany begins on p.36.  In BCP 2004, it is p.170.

This represents a profound rupture with the classical Anglican tradition.  The dismissal of the Litany, the inability to comprehend how it could form a regular part of Common Prayer, stands in complete contrast with Hooker's assessment.  He described the Litany as "absolute perfection", referred to its "principal excellence", and asserted that it was of "permanent use" in the Church's life rather than, as the Puritans suggested, only suitable for times of calamity (LEP V.41.3-4).

In his A Rationale on the Book of Common Prayer, Sparrow similarly praises the Litany:

Concerning the Litany of our Church, we may boldly say, and easily maintain it, that there is not extant any where; 1. A more particular excellent enumeration of all the Christians either private or common wants; Nor 2. A more innocent, blameless form, against which there lies no just exception; Nor 3. A more Artificial Composure for the raising of our devotion, and keeping it up throughout, than this part of our Liturgy.

It is striking to note in both Hooker and Sparrow this confidence in the Litany as an excellent form of liturgical prayer. And, in both, there is also the recognition that it rightly shapes and forms our approach to prayer:

What one petition is there found in the whole litany whereof we shall ever be able at any time to say that no man living needeth the grace or benefit therein craved at God's hands? - Hooker.

The Litany is not one long continued prayer, but broken into many short and pithy Ejaculations: that the intention and devotion which is most necessary in prayer, may not be dull'd and vanish, as in a long prayer it is apt to do; but be quickned and intended, by so many new and quick petitions - Sparrow.

In displacing the Litany as a regular feature of Common Prayer this is what we have lost.  We have lost this means of shaping and forming our prayer, this expression of our dependence on the grace and goodness of God for all our well-being and flourishing.

When reviving the Prayer Book tradition is discussed, it is not often the case that the Litany features in such discussions.  It should, however, be a key feature of a renewed Prayer Book tradition.  The Litany challenges the contemporary Church to be serious about prayer, about intercession, for all aspects of life, all times of life, all states of life.  It ensures that the Church heeds the Apostolic exhortation: I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men.  That 'for all' is too easily overlooked in much contemporary liturgical prayer, too easily replaced with particular causes and interests. 

The Litany, then, has a role in renewing the parish as a centre of intercessory prayer.  Without the Litany as a regular feature of Common Prayer, our intercessions too frequently narrow, lessen in scope, and forget particular states of life.  To pray the Litany is to take seriously the vocation and gift of intercession.