The Night Litany

Twenty years ago, I compiled an Order for Night Prayer. Here are four litanies, to be used singly, from that order. (They are not, I suppose, litanies in the strictest sense.) It's been so long, I can't be sure, but I think I wrote them all. I hope you will find them to be useful.

Litany the First

Lord, we bring before you
the needs of our parents, brothers, sisters, friends,
all who love us, all who have asked for our prayers.
Help and comfort them.
Protect them from all dangers and save them from all sin
that freed from evil they may praise you greatly.
— Lord, have mercy.

Lord, we also bring before you
those who have hindered or burdened or harmed us.
— Lord, forgive them.

Lord, we also bring before you
those whom we have hurt or offended or troubled
in word or deed, knowingly or unknowingly.
— Lord, bless them.

Lord, take from our hearts
all suspicion, hard feelings, anger, dissension,
and whatever else may lessen the holy love
we should have for one another.
— Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy on all who need your mercy.
Give your grace to all in need
and bring us to everlasting life.
— Amen.

Litany the Second

On doctors, nurses, firemen, police: Everlasting, have mercy.
On all who labor through the night: Everlasting, have mercy.

On the sick, the despairing, and the dying: Everlasting, have mercy.
On alcoholics and drug addicts: Everlasting, have mercy.
On the homeless, the starving, and the lost: Everlasting, have mercy.
On all who suffer through the night: Everlasting, have mercy.

On drug smugglers and pushers: Everlasting, have mercy.
On murderers, robbers, and burglars: Everlasting, have mercy.
On those who are tempting others: Everlasting, have mercy.
On all who imperil their salvation: Everlasting, have mercy.

On those who blaspheme: Everlasting, have mercy.
On those who abuse the Name: Everlasting, have mercy.
On those who neglect or profane the Sacrament: Everlasting, have mercy.
On those who do not pray: Everlasting, have mercy.
On all who do not know you: Everlasting, have mercy.

On those with whom we shared this day: Everlasting, have mercy.
On those we have not seen for months or years: Everlasting, have mercy.
On those who taught or helped or encouraged us: Everlasting, have mercy.
On those who have laughed or cried with us: Everlasting, have mercy.
On those whom we will meet tomorrow: Everlasting, have mercy.
On all who bring us closer to you: Everlasting, have mercy.

On all of us, always in need of your mercy: Everlasting, have mercy.
Amen.

Litany the Third

To those who were born today
— grant your blessing throughout life.

To children
— grant your protection in a safe and happy home.

To adolescents
— grant your instruction as they mature.

To young adults
— grant your guidance as they choose their ways.

To newly-weds
— grant your blessing in their life together.

To parents
— grant your counsel in all their decisions.

To grandparents
— grant your comfort, strength and peace.

To all the aged
— grant your consolation and our compassion.

To all who have died today
— grant forgiveness, grace and life everlasting. Amen.

Litany the Fourth

For the whole Church, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For our Holy Father N., we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For our bishop N., we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For our pastor N., we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For all the pastors of the Church, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For all priests and deacons, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For the Church's lay ministers, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For the members of this Church of N., we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For all Christ's faithful everywhere, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For religious and their communities, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For consecrated laymen in the world, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For missionaries at home and abroad, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For theologians and teachers, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For seminarians and students, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For those engaged to be married, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For those preparing for confirmation, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For those preparing for first Communion, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For those preparing to join the Church, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For the newly-baptized, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For catechumens, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For all who seek the truth and light, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For those who suffer for the Name, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
For ourselves, we pray: Grace, mercy, peace.
Amen.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/31/04 07:55:41 PM
Categorized as Religious.

"Tremors of Doubt"

David Hart, an Orthodox theologian, writes at OpinionJournal today in the wake of the tsunamis:

.... The Christian understanding of evil has always been more radical and fantastic than that of any theodicist; for it denies from the outset that suffering, death and evil have any ultimate meaning at all. Perhaps no doctrine is more insufferably fabulous to non-Christians than the claim that we exist in the long melancholy aftermath of a primordial catastrophe, that this is a broken and wounded world, that cosmic time is the shadow of true time, and that the universe languishes in bondage to "powers" and "principalities" — spiritual and terrestrial — alien to God. In the Gospel of John, especially, the incarnate God enters a world at once his own and yet hostile to him — "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not" — and his appearance within "this cosmos" is both an act of judgment and a rescue of the beauties of creation from the torments of fallen nature.

Whatever one makes of this story, it is no bland cosmic optimism. Yes, at the heart of the gospel is an ineradicable triumphalism, a conviction that the victory over evil and death has been won; but it is also a victory yet to come. As Paul says, all creation groans in anguished anticipation of the day when God's glory will transfigure all things. For now, we live amid a strife of darkness and light.

When confronted by the sheer savage immensity of worldly suffering — when we see the entire littoral rim of the Indian Ocean strewn with tens of thousands of corpses, a third of them children's — no Christian is licensed to utter odious banalities about God's inscrutable counsels or blasphemous suggestions that all this mysteriously serves God's good ends. We are permitted only to hate death and waste and the imbecile forces of chance that shatter living souls, to believe that creation is in agony in its bonds, to see this world as divided between two kingdoms — knowing all the while that it is only charity that can sustain us against "fate," and that must do so until the end of days.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/31/04 07:44:10 PM
Categorized as Religious.

"Bless Me, Bishop, For I Back Sinning"

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/31/04 07:40:25 PM
Categorized as Religious.

"A Unified Theory of the Old Media Collapse"

A great article by Hugh Hewitt at The Weekly Standard, Dec. 28:

.... Here's my first take on a theory. Call it the Theory of Asymmetrical Tolerance and its effects. It goes like this:

For many generations, Big Media represented the interests of the dominant political and business elites. Men like Henry Luce and William Paley represented that tradition.

Some of those interests were repugnant, especially those behind segregation. With the arrival of the civil rights movement, journalism slowly began to reform itself and to work overtime to represent underrepresented political and social points of view. There developed a great tolerance for viewpoints and perspectives from ideological minorities, and a great hunger to represent those views not only in the media product but also in the media workforces. First opposition to the Vietnam war and then the hunting of Richard Nixon accelerated this trend, so that old media quickly evolved into a fortress of "oppositional" reporting and personnel.

The new recruits to big journalism and their mentors did not work overtime to assure that, in the elevation of tolerance of ideological minorities, there would remain representation of majoritarian points of view. In fact, majoritarian points of view became suspect, and the focus of pervasive hostile reporting and analysis. Crusading journalists seemed to be an ideological pack. By the time the new millennium arrived, legacy media was populated at its elite levels by as homogeneous a group of reporters / producers / commentators as could ever have been assembled from the newsrooms of the old Hearst operation. Big Media had hired itself into a rut — a self-replicating echo chamber of left and further-left scribblers and talkers and self-reinforcing head nodders who were overwhelmingly anti-Republican, anti-Christian, anti-military, anti-wealth, anti-business, and even anti-middle class. These new journalists had no tolerance for majoritarian points of view, and the gap between the producers of the news and the consumers of the news widened until the credibility gap between the two made Lyndon Johnson's look modest by comparison.

Meanwhile, the majority of consumers grew tired of the exclusion of its views from the media. When Rush Limbaugh arrived, he prospered because at last there was a voice reflecting majoritarian points of view. The same welcome greeted Fox News and the blogs of the center-right.

In legacy media there is now much dismay. Many of their biggest names appear not to understand that they are distrusted by more than half of America, and don't even seem to recognize their own contempt for majoritarian positions....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/31/04 06:13:08 PM
Categorized as Media.

Patterico Flays LAT

Fine examples of why so much of mainstream media hates bloggers.

Patrick Frey posts an almost-endless two-part exposition and analysis of political bias in the pages of the Los Angeles Times this year.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/31/04 05:59:24 PM
Categorized as Media.

Blogroll Additions

I've added about 25 weblogs to Here a Blog, There a Blog. With the changes earlier this week, that's a net reduction of about twenty blogs in the blogroll.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 12/31/04 05:48:08 PM
Categorized as Blog Stuff.