Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT
By: Gregory DiPippo.
Tuesday, 19 May 2026.
This Post comes entirely from notes written by our Ambrosian expert, Nicola de’ Grandi.
The photos were taken yesterday at the Church of Santa Maria della Consolazione, Milan, where the Traditional Rite is Celebrated, and which observed the Minor Litanies with a Procession and a Station within the Church.
In previous years, it has been held outside, but yesterday it was raining.
Last month, I Posted the Liturgical Texts of the Ambrosian Form of the Major Litanies.
Special thanks to Mr. Andrea Riva for providing the video of the Litany of the Saints, given below.
In the Ambrosian Rite, the Minor Litanies are Celebrated on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, after Ascension Day, not before Ascension Day, as in the Roman Rite.
This Article is taken from, and can be read in full at,
This Post comes entirely from notes written by our Ambrosian expert, Nicola de’ Grandi.
The photos were taken yesterday at the Church of Santa Maria della Consolazione, Milan, where the Traditional Rite is Celebrated, and which observed the Minor Litanies with a Procession and a Station within the Church.
In previous years, it has been held outside, but yesterday it was raining.
Last month, I Posted the Liturgical Texts of the Ambrosian Form of the Major Litanies.
Special thanks to Mr. Andrea Riva for providing the video of the Litany of the Saints, given below.
In the Ambrosian Rite, the Minor Litanies are Celebrated on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, after Ascension Day, not before Ascension Day, as in the Roman Rite.
This custom is attested in the very oldest Ambrosian Liturgical Books, and was observed from very ancient times throughout the North of Italy, not just at Milan, as seen in a Liturgical manuscript at Friuli, in the Veneto region, already in the 6th Century A.D.
They were originally known as the “Major Litanies”, since they were instituted before the observance on April 25th that now bears that name, but which is not attested in the Ambrosian Rite before the 11th-Century.
Although Saint Ambrose writes that it was not the custom of The Church to Fast during the Easter Season (Exposition of the Gospel of Saint Luke 25), a fact which was adduced in criticism of the Milanese custom in The Middle Ages, it was defended in the Later-11th-Century by a Cleric of the City, named Landolfo, who refers to what Christ says when asked why His disciples did not Fast: “The days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast” (Matthew 9, 15).
Ambrosian Liturgical manuscript of the 13th-Century.
Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT
Although Saint Ambrose writes that it was not the custom of The Church to Fast during the Easter Season (Exposition of the Gospel of Saint Luke 25), a fact which was adduced in criticism of the Milanese custom in The Middle Ages, it was defended in the Later-11th-Century by a Cleric of the City, named Landolfo, who refers to what Christ says when asked why His disciples did not Fast: “The days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast” (Matthew 9, 15).
The three-day-Fast after Ascension Day, the departure of the Bridegroom, therefore imitates what the Apostles did while waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
A contemporary of Saint Ambrose, Saint Philastrius of Brescia, attests to exactly this same custom, and for exactly the same reasons, already in the Mid-5th-Century A.D.
The Mozarabic Liturgy also Traditionally observes a Fast of three days in the week after the Ascension, on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, before the Vigil of Pentecost.
The rest of this excellent Article can be read at
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