Night prayer

A hymn suitable for the evening may be sung.  Then follows

V.    Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit;
R.    For you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth.
V.    Keep us, O Lord, as the apple of your eye;
R.    Hide us under the shadow of your wings.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.Lord, have mercy.

Compline lives at the base of the ancient tree of prayer known as the daily offices. There are too many variations to count – and it’s beautiful to observe. Particularly in light of the inescapable fact that no one church tradition can claim to own it. The Vs are Versicles; the Rs are Responses. Split between a room, one side may say the Vs and the other my respond with the Rs. We tried this as a group the other evening. The push and pull of voices, labouring to unite. Some had to hold back from taking the lead; others had to work to keep up … ‘I’m not very good at reading’, she says. And it’s so true of the ancient communities who lived this way. Recalling from memory the words of life. The words of forgiveness. The prose and poetry of remembering [anamnesis] and voluntary non-remembering, which is altogether not forgetting. It is the choosing not to hold something done wrong – against the wrongdoer, even and especially if its ourselves. It is God’s power. Authority. Mercy. And so in compline, we make preparation for the Great Silence of the night. And the Great Silence of our lives, if we need it. A preparation, a being ‘made well and whole’, of being healed, restored. And sometimes, yes, of a making one’s own deathbed. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit ….