In this final extract from the Litany of Confession, attributed to Saint Ciaran of Clonmacnoise by Friar Michael O’ Clery in the seventeenth century, having identified the effects our sins have upon us and having begged God to take action against them, we now turn to seeking His forgiveness. Daphne Pochin-Mould, from whose work these extracts have been sourced, introduces this final section saying:

Then the litany asks the forgiveness of God by all the various actions of the Incarnation, the womb and paps of Mary, by everyone who saw or touched Christ and by Our Lord’s own patience, humility, uniqueness, nobleness by the passion and the Resurrection and Ascension:

“By every creature whereon the Holy Spirit came, from the beginning of the world to the end;

By Thy coming again the day of doom; (grant) that I may be righteous and perfect, without great dread on me of hell or doom, without soreness or bitterness on Thy part towards me, O Lord;

For my sins are blazing through me and around me, at me and towards me, above me and below me.

Alas, Alas, Alas, forgive me, O God.

Every sin which I did, and took pleasure in doing;

Every sin which I did under compulsion, or not under compulsion;

Forgive.

Every sin which I sought after, or did not seek after;

Forgive.

Every evil that I did to anyone, or that anyone did to me; 

Forgive.

Everything which I sought for, or did not seek for; found or did not find; 

Forgive me.

Everyone to whom I did good unjustly, or evil justly;

Forgive.

Every good which I did and marred; evil which I did, and did not make good; 

Forgive.

Every provocation which I gave to God or man;

Forgive me.

Every sitting down, every standing up; every movement, every stillness; every sleep, every sleeplessness; every forgetfulness, every remembrance; every carelessness, every carefulness; every longing, every desire, every lust; every thought, every love, every hate, which is, which was, which shall be mine, so to my life’s end.

Forgive me.

Every will, every displeasure, which I have harboured against God or man;

Forgive me.

Every ill that I did, every good that I omitted, every sin within sin, every ill within good, every good within ill that I did.

Forgive me for them. Amen.

Daphne Pochin-Mould, The Celtic Saints: Our Heritage (Dublin, 1956), 116. 

She comments in conclusion:

The length and detail of the litany of Confession is typical of Irish devotion of Celtic times, a liking to explore into everything, but there is also an alert watchfulness about it, a determination to let nothing be slurred over in this examination of conscience.

Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.

Continuing the extracts from the Irish ‘Litany of Confession’, attributed in some manuscripts to Saint Ciaran, though most likely composed after the time of Clonmacnoise’s founder. Yesterday we saw how the effects of our sins on us were described, today the Litany beseeches God to take action against them:

Propter nomen tuum Domine, propiciaberis peccato meo.

Many and vast are my sins in their mass, through my heart and round about it like a net or breast-plate;

O King, they cannot be numbered;

Despoil me of them, O God;

Break, smite and war against them;

Ravage, bend and wither them; 

Take away, repel, destroy them;

Arise, scatter, defeat them; 

See, repress, waste them;

Destroy, summon, starve them;

Prostrate, burn, mangle them;

Kill, slay and ruin them;

Torture, divide and purify them;

Tear, expel and raze them;

Remove, scatter and cleave them;

Subdue, exhaust and lay them low.

Heavy then and bitter is

The subdual and the piercing;

The bond and the fetter;

 The confusion and the maddening;

The disturbance and the raging;

which the multitude of my sins brings upon me.

Daphne D.C. Pochin Mould, The Celtic Saints: Our Heritage (Dublin, 1956) 116-117.

Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.

In 1925 the Oxford scholar and Anglican cleric, Rev. Charles Plummer (1851–1927), editor and translator of the 1910 two-volume Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, added to his work on Irish medieval manuscripts by publishing a volume on Irish Litanies.  He assembled a selection of thirteen litanies in all, taken from a variety of manuscript sources including some of those used by Friar Michael O’Clery (1590-1643), preserved in the Royal Library at Brussels. Plummer called the first Litany in his collection The Litany of Confession, noting that O’Clery’s manuscript called it ‘De Confesione Sancte Ciarane (sic)’ to which the Donegal hagiologist added ‘I do not know to which of the Ciarans it is to be attributed…unless it be to Ciaran of Cluain (Clonmacnois)’. Plummer himself commented ‘It is little likely that the Litany can be as old as the time of this Ciaran (ob. 549), but the connection with Clonmacnois should be noted. I have found no other indication of authorship.’ In the extract from the Litany below, Daphne Pochin-Mould felt that ‘in striking terms [it] details the effects of sins upon the penitent’:

“Come to help me, for the multitude of my inveterate sins have made dense my too guilty heart; 

They have bent me, perverted me, have blinded me, have twisted and withered me;

They have clung to me, have pained me, have moved me, have filled me;

They have humbled me, exhausted me, they have subdued me, possessed me, cast me down;

They have befooled me, drowned me, deceived me and troubled me;

They have torn me and chased me;

They have bound me, have ravaged me, have crucified me, rebuked me, sold me, searched me, mocked me;

They have maddened me, bewitched me, betrayed me, delayed me, killed me.

Forgive.”

 Daphne Pochin-Mould, The Celtic Saints: Our Heritage (Dublin, 1956), 116.

Content Copyright © Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae 2012-2023. All rights reserved.