Praying the Canon of Supplication to the Theotokos as a family

[CatholicNerd]

Hi there, Byzcaths! I have a pressing question for you. My wife and I are Latin Catholics who would like to pray the service of the Small Paraklesis during the remainder of the days leading up to the Feast of the Dormition.

I cannot, however, find any rubrics that outline what us layfolks should pray and what we should not. I do vaguely recall that the formula at the end of a service led by a minor cleric or layperson is “Through the prayers of our holy fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and save us.”

Is this something we can do on our own? We have absolutely no chance of getting to an Eastern church before the Dormition.

 

[Diak]

At the beginning instead of the invocation of the priest (“Blessed be our God…”) say “By the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen”. (That is the UGCC translation for priestless services according to the Anthology; some other translations use “through the prayers…”)

The Usual Beginning prayers are taken, and the above said again instead of the priest’s doxology after the Our Father. Lord have mercy X12, Glory…Now… Come let us bow… and then Psalm 142 and “The Lord is God”.

Replace any longer litanies with “Lord, have mercy” X12, any shorter Litanies (such as after the Third and Sixth odes) with Lord, have mercy X3.

Archimandrite Ephraim Lash has a very nice poetic translation of the Little Paraklesis Canon (also referred to as the “Moleben Canon” in Ukrainian or “Canon of Supplication” in several usages) and has included some notes about usage without a priest at anastasis.org.uk/lit-parak.htm There is some difference between Greek and Slavic usage; in Slavic usage this would be a Moleben with the Canon of Supplication.

In the Ukrainian usage we always take what Archimandrite Ephraim has coined the “troparia of compunction” while he rightly indicates the Greek usage which is to use different troparia depending on the time of the year.

Fr. John Whiteford also has another order more along the lines of the Russian usage at saintjonah.org/services/moleben.htm
pages.prodigy.net/frjohnwhiteford/mpthn_canon.htm
FDRLB

 

[bpbasilphx]

In private, you can pretty much observe the rubrics as circumstances permit.

If all you read are the Odes/Canticles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (Hermoi and Troparia), you are praying the Paraclisis Canon.

 

[CatholicNerd]

Thanks so much! All of the resources provided were just what we were looking for.