Agenda
Agenda (Lat. things to be done), among ecclesiastical writers of the ancient Church, denotes (1,) divine service in general; (2,) the mass in particular. We meet with agenda matutina and vespertina — morning and evening prayers; agenda die — the office of the day, whether feast or fast day; agenda mortuorum — the service of the dead. It is also applied to church- books, compiled by public authority, prescribing the order to be observed by the ministers and people in the ceremonies and devotions of the Church. In this sense agenda occurs for the first time in a work of Johannes de Janua, about 1287. The name was especially used to designate a book containing the formulae of prayer and ceremonies to be observed by priests in their several ecclesiastical functions. It was generally adopted in the Lutheran Church of Germany, in which it is still in use, while in the Roman Church it has been, since the 16th century, supplanted by the term ritual (q.v.). For the history of the Lutheran Agendas, SEE LITURGY.
