SINGING LITANIES is probably an acquired taste. I haven’t found anyone yet who loves them straight out of the box. When teaching my kids, they always give you that look as if to ask “how much longer does this have to go?”. Maybe letting them know that this one is the shortest one in the Liber Usualis will help them feel better.
On the positive side, litanies are easy to learn. The same responses occur over and over again. One run through may be all you require – and all that you can extract from limited attention spans.
Typing up litanies is a challenge in itself. The Liber Usualis and other books align several lines of invocations under the one line of chant. Software like gregorio is designed for perfectly aligning one line of text at a time. Asking it to spread the notes out and align a few more lines underneath takes more patience and some clever tricks.
Although I’m sure some people will be impressed with that PDF, most times when I present people with a score, they complain that they can’t read this four line stuff and they will require a recording. Here is a quick recording of my eldest son and myself singing through the Litany of St Joseph in Latin.
And may St Joseph bless you and your family with good weather, patience, humility, work, housing, safe travels and a happy death. St Joseph is also one of the patron saints of confectioners.
UPDATE: The Congregation for Divine Worship has added in seven new invocations, so here is my updated sheet music:
