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Course 21 · Lesson 6.3

The rosary, the Stations of the Cross, litanies and akathists

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 21 outline

Module 1: The Theology of Worship

  1. What liturgy is: the word, the idea and the debate
  2. Worship in the Old and New Testaments
  3. Praying and believing: how worship shapes doctrine and doctrine shapes worship
  4. Word, sacrament and sign across the traditions

Module 2: How Christian Liturgy Developed

  1. The earliest descriptions: the Didache, Justin Martyr and the early church orders
  2. The liturgical families of East and West
  3. The Reformation and the revision of worship
  4. Liturgical renewal in the twentieth century

Module 3: The Christian Year: Calendars, Feasts and Fasts

  1. Sunday, the week and the hours of the day
  2. Easter, Holy Week and the dispute over the date
  3. Advent, Christmas and Epiphany
  4. Lent, the Orthodox fasting seasons and Protestant approaches to fasting
  5. Saints days and the second cycle of the calendar

Module 4: Sacred Space and Sacred Images

  1. From house church to basilica: the development of church buildings
  2. The meaning of church buildings: altar, table, orientation and the Orthodox and Gothic examples
  3. Icons and the Incarnation: John of Damascus and the Second Council of Nicaea
  4. Images and the Reformation: Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican approaches

Module 5: Material Signs: Incense, Water, Oil and Blessings

  1. Incense: Scripture, temple worship and its use in the churches
  2. Water: baptism, the renewal of baptismal vows and holy water
  3. Oil: anointing of the sick, chrismation, confirmation and ordination
  4. Blessings: what the church means when it blesses a person, a house or an object
  5. Sacraments and sacramentals: the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant vocabulary

Module 6: Popular Piety and Devotional Practice

  1. What popular piety is, and why scholars take it seriously
  2. Pilgrimage, relics, medals and pious objects
  3. The rosary, the Stations of the Cross, litanies and akathists
  4. How the churches have regulated and corrected popular devotion

Module 7: Telling Tradition from Superstition

  1. What the theologians mean by superstition, and why the line is hard to draw
  2. A method: source, date, doctrine, authority and consequence
  3. Case studies: apocryphal legends, magical formulas and invented history
  4. Honesty and respect in judging other people’s devotion

All courses

Program / Course 21: Liturgical Theology / Lesson 6.3

What you will learn

  • Describe the structure and history of the rosary and the debate over its origins.
  • Explain the Stations of the Cross, including the fact that not all stations are in the Gospels.
  • Define litany and akathist and name examples from the Western and Eastern churches.
  • Summarize Protestant objections, especially Matthew 6:7, and the replies, and say what can be prayed alone.

The big idea

The rosary, the Stations of the Cross, litanies and akathists are prayer forms that developed within the church, most of them after the first millennium. Each is a repeated, structured prayer meant to turn the mind to the life of Christ or to the praise of God. They are approved devotions in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, but not part of their central liturgy. Many Protestants reject some of them as lacking biblical warrant or as resembling the empty repetition that Jesus warned against. These prayers can be said alone, and that is where most people use them.

Key terms

Rosary
A Catholic prayer of meditation on events in the lives of Jesus and Mary, said with beads. Each decade has an Our Father, ten Hail Marys and a Glory Be.
Hail Mary
A prayer built on the words of Gabriel and Elizabeth in Luke 1:28 and 1:42, with a petition for Mary’s prayers added in the later Middle Ages.
Stations of the Cross
A devotion of fourteen stops, in church or outdoors, recalling Christ’s passion from his condemnation to his burial.
Litany
From the Greek for supplication. A prayer of a leader’s short petitions answered by the people with a fixed response, such as Lord, have mercy.
Akathist
A Greek word meaning not seated. An Eastern hymn of praise, standing, in many short stanzas, to Christ, Mary or a saint.
Jesus Prayer
A short prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, repeated in Orthodox spirituality, often with a prayer rope.
Prayer rope
A knotted cord, used in Orthodox prayer to count repetitions of the Jesus Prayer.

Background

The rosary grew from the medieval practice of laypeople saying 150 Our Fathers in imitation of the 150 Psalms of the monks. This was replaced by Hail Marys, and the set of 150 was divided into groups with meditations on Christ’s life. Tradition holds that Saint Dominic received the rosary from Mary in the early thirteenth century, but historians doubt this, since the earliest evidence for the Dominican link comes from the fifteenth century. Pope Pius V in 1569 gave official approval to the form, and John Paul II added the luminous mysteries in 2002.

The Stations of the Cross are connected with pilgrims on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. From the fifteenth century Franciscans, who guarded the holy places, spread the devotion to Europe, so that people could make the journey in spirit at home. The number fourteen became fixed in the eighteenth century. Litanies go back to the church’s earliest prayers, and the akathist tradition arises in the Byzantine East from the sixth century.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The rosary

A person praying the rosary announces a mystery, such as the Annunciation, and prays an Our Father, ten Hail Marys and a Glory Be while thinking about that event. There are four sets of mysteries (joyful, luminous, sorrowful and glorious), five each. The prayer is a meditation on the Gospel using words to quiet the mind, and the church teaches that its center is Christ. The Hail Mary joins the greeting of Gabriel (Luke 1:28) to the greeting of Elizabeth (Luke 1:42), and the second half asks Mary to pray for us sinners now and at the hour of death. This second half became common in the fifteenth century and was included in the Roman Breviary of 1568. Orthodox Christians do not pray the rosary, though they honor Mary with other hymns.

Step 2: The Stations of the Cross

The fourteen stations begin with Jesus’ condemnation by Pilate and include his taking up the cross, his falls, his meeting with his mother, Simon of Cyrene, Veronica, the women of Jerusalem, the stripping, the crucifixion, his death and burial. Some of these are in the Gospels and some are not. The three falls, the meeting with Mary and Veronica’s cloth are traditional, not scriptural. In 1991 Pope John Paul II led a version at the Colosseum using only Gospel scenes, and this was later used widely. Anglicans, Lutherans and some other Protestants use stations in Lent, especially in the Scriptural form. The devotion is usually prayed on Fridays in Lent.

Step 3: Litanies and the akathist

Litanies are part of the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, which opens with the Great Litany (the ektenia), where the deacon asks for peace and the people answer Lord, have mercy. In the West the Litany of the Saints is used in baptism and ordination, and the Litany of Loreto honors Mary. Thomas Cranmer prepared an English Litany in 1544, which the Prayer Book kept. The akathist hymn to the Mother of God, from the sixth or seventh century, is sung standing in Great Lent. Legend ties it to the deliverance of Constantinople in 626, a link that historians treat with caution. There are now akathists to Christ and to many saints.

Step 4: The objection and the reply

Jesus warns, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking” (Matthew 6:7). Reformed and many evangelical Christians cite this against the rosary and similar prayers, and they add that the Hail Mary’s petition to Mary lacks Scriptural command. Catholic and Orthodox writers reply that Jesus condemned empty babbling and not all repetition, pointing to the repeated cry of the Psalms, to Jesus’ own repetition in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:44) and to the cry of Bartimaeus (Mark 10:47-48). They hold that the rosary is a form of meditation. Luther kept the first part of the Hail Mary as a prayer of praise, though he rejected petition to Mary as a necessary practice. The disagreement is real and turns on the invocation of saints discussed earlier.

Step 5: Praying alone

All of these prayers can be said alone. The rosary needs only a set of beads or fingers. The Stations can be prayed from a booklet, a Gospel or a walk. The Jesus Prayer needs only a quiet moment. A person should understand what the words mean and should not treat the number of repetitions as a guarantee of results. The church teaches that no devotion has a mechanical effect, and that stories of promises tied to the rosary or other prayers, such as a fixed number of recitations bringing a certain gain, should not be accepted without support from the church. A person who prefers not to pray to Mary or the saints can pray the Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer or the Jesus Prayer without them.

  1. What is the structure of this prayer and what does each part do?
  2. Which parts come from Scripture and which from later tradition?
  3. How old is the earliest evidence for it?
  4. What does the church that uses it say it is for?
  5. What does the objector fear, and is that fear met by the church’s teaching?
  6. How would I pray it so that it is attentive and not a formula?

Examples

A rosary decade

A woman announces the first joyful mystery, the Annunciation, and prays an Our Father, ten Hail Marys and a Glory Be, thinking of Luke 1:26-38. She counts on the beads and does not look at them. The words give a steady rhythm for the meditation.

A Lenten Friday

An Anglican parish prays the Stations on Fridays in Lent using Scripture-only stations, with a reading and a short prayer at each. A Methodist neighbor joins one week and finds the readings familiar. She says she will continue it at home.

The Jesus Prayer

An Orthodox layman repeats the Jesus Prayer, slowly, on a knotted rope while walking to work. His spiritual father has told him to say it for ten minutes a day and not to seek special experiences.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The rosary is a Christ-centered meditation on the Gospel with Mary, recommended by many popes. The Stations are a way to share Christ’s passion. Both are approved but optional devotions.

Orthodox

The Orthodox do not use the rosary, but pray litanies, akathists and the Jesus Prayer, and honor the Mother of God in many hymns. These are rooted in the Eastern liturgical tradition.

Anglican and Lutheran

The Litany is part of the Prayer Book, and Stations and prayer beads are used by some, with a prayer bead tradition developed by Episcopalians in the 1980s. Lutherans value Luther’s household prayers.

Reformed and evangelical

Prayer should be in the words of Scripture and in the believer’s own words. They are cautious about set repetitions and especially about prayer addressed to Mary or the saints.

Scholarly

Historians trace the growth of these devotions and caution against pious legends of their origin, such as Dominic’s rosary or the dating of the akathist, while recognizing their significance for believers.

Why it matters

These prayers show how a Christian tradition builds practices from Scripture, repeated words and the body. The same features that attract those who use them, such as repetition and rhythm, concern those who do not. Understanding both lets a student avoid contempt or credulity, and it makes plain which parts are Scripture, which are tradition, and which are legend.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Catholics worship Mary by saying the rosary.

Correction: Catholic teaching says the rosary is a meditation on Christ’s life, with Mary asked to pray, and the church distinguishes the honor given to Mary from the worship due to God.

Misunderstanding: St Dominic invented the rosary in 1214.

Correction: The tradition is pious, but historians find no evidence for it before the fifteenth century. The rosary developed over several centuries.

Misunderstanding: All the Stations of the Cross are in the Gospels.

Correction: Only some are. The falls, the meeting with Mary and Veronica are tradition. A scriptural form exists.

Misunderstanding: Jesus condemned all repeated prayer in Matthew 6:7.

Correction: He condemned meaningless babbling that thinks God is moved by many words. Scripture elsewhere shows repeated prayer, so the verse is interpreted by what it targets.

Knowledge check

How did the rosary develop?

It grew from lay recitation of 150 Our Fathers in imitation of the 150 Psalms, which was replaced by Hail Marys with meditation on mysteries of Christ’s life. Papal approval came in 1569. The tradition that Dominic received it is not supported by early evidence.

Which Stations of the Cross are not in the Gospels?

The three falls, Jesus’ meeting with his mother and Veronica wiping his face are traditional. A scriptural form omits them. The number fourteen was fixed in the eighteenth century.

What is a litany and where is it used?

It is a prayer of short petitions with a fixed response, such as Lord, have mercy. It appears in the Orthodox Liturgy as the Great Litany and in the Litany of the Saints and the Anglican Prayer Book Litany.

How do defenders of repeated prayer answer Matthew 6:7?

They say that Jesus condemned empty talk that thinks many words earn a hearing, not all repetition. They cite the repeated cries in the Psalms, in Gethsemane and by Bartimaeus.

Think it through

  1. What is the difference between repetition that deadens and repetition that steadies?
  2. Why might Protestants and Catholics weigh Matthew 6:7 differently?
  3. Which of these prayer forms could you use with honesty, given your tradition?
  4. How do legends about origins affect the way people value a devotion?

Independent assignment

Pray and report

In your own notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Choose one of these forms that your own tradition permits and use it for a week, or if none, read an account of one. Describe its structure, what you noticed about attention, where it helped and where it was hard, and what you think a critic would say. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study