THE LITANY OF LORETO

New Zealand Tablet, 20 July 1916, Page 17

THE LITANY OF LORETO

His Lordship the Bishop of Salford (Right Rev. Dr. Casartelli) gave a most interesting and instructive sermon recently in his Cathedral on the Litany of Loreto. The earliest of all litanies (said his Lordship) dated from the eighth century, and was an old litany in the Irish language. From that time there were many other Litanies of our Blessed Lady, but the strange thing was that the Litany of Loreto, as they now said and sang it, was a comparatively modern composition. In early times, two or three centuries ago, historical writers were of opinion that the present Litany of Loreto was ofearly date and went back to the time of the Apostles. But recent historians, during the past few years, who had made very elaborate study of the present litany, had come to the conclusion that that was quite a mistake, and that the Litany they now had was not older than the sixteenth century- —possibly of the year 1507. Its connection with the great shrine of the Holy House of Loreto was very obscure, because they knew that though there was a Litany of Our Lady sung at Loreto, they knew also that it was quite different to the Litany they now had—it was a Scriptural Litany with certain epithets and petitions drawn almost exclusively from Scripture. Their present Litany was First Printed in 1576. The time was rather interesting, and threw some light, perhaps, on the origin of the present Litany. It was in 1571 that the great battle of Lepanto was fought: that great battle in which Pope Pius V. had managed to unite some of the Christian Powers of Europe to fight the power of the Turks, who were threatening to overrun the whole of Europe. They would remember the date of the great naval victory of Lepanto, by which the power of the Turks was destroyed and Europe was saved for ever from what would have been otherwise a catastrophe. They knew the fact that at that very time Pope Pius V., to commemorate that wonderful victory, the saving of Europe by the power of our Blessed Lady, who was being invoked in her Rosary, added the petition ‘ Auxilium Christianorum.’ They would see that just about that time their present Litany was composed. An interesting fact was shown by various modern writers in that every single invocation was taken from one or other of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church from the fifth century onwards, and no less than fifty names of Fathers and Doctors of the Church appeared in the list of those from whose writings Those Titles of Our Lady had been taken. The fact was that the Litany was what was called a catena —a chain of witnesses, from the fifth century onwards to the close of the Middle Ages, of the belief and teaching of all the great Doctors

and Fathers and Theologians of the Church concerning our Blessed Lady, concerning her privileges and virtues, and all that glorious recompense which her Divine Son had bestowed upon her in Heaven. So it was evidently the work of some eminent historian who had been able to draw from the teaching concerning our Blessed Lady and her prerogatives. It was a very remarkable fact. The next point was that all those different titles, instead of being promiscuously arranged, were in the most careful order. They were most carefully chosen and arranged in groups which had got a certain connection that could only be realised by their careful study, one by one, of the different invocations and the meaning that underlay them. And so much was that the case that they could not in English appreciate their beautiful order. It was only when they took the Latin they would find the beautiful arranging, and when they took the wording they would find there was the idea of grouping the words in such a way that they formed what he might call a real mosaic.