“Compline” is the ancient monastic service of “Completion”. In the 8th century, Benedictine monks began a pattern of praying eight times a day: Matins (before dawn), Lauds (at sunrise), then Prime, Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers throughout the day (each about three hours apart). Finally, at bedtime, Compline. Today, Anglican prayer books offer four such ‘offices’ – morning, midday, evening, and night. Like most prayer offices, Compline includes a confession, a reading from the Psalms and other Scriptures, written and responsive prayers, and a time for silence or extemporaneous prayer.
This final service of the day is an opportunity to reflect on the day that has passed, to peak through a small window of Scripture into the Big Story of God’s ongoing encounter with his people, and to draw on words hallowed by tradition as “a way to wade into the ongoing stream of the church’s communion with [God],”* as Tish Harrison Warren expresses it. She goes on to explain “Scripted prayers—the prayers of Compline, the Psalms, or any other received prayers—are not static. As we pray them, we read our own lives back into the words we pray. Our own biographies shape our understanding of these prayers as much as these prayers shape us and our own stories.”
Want to find out more? A good place to start is Tish Harrison Warren’s excellent book “Prayer in the Night; for those who work or watch or weep”. An American Anglican priest, she combines her own personal experiences of prayer in a time of suffering [trigger warning: miscarriage and bereavement] with a rooted and thoughtful unpacking of the wonderful ancient tradition of Prayer in the Night.
*Warren, Tish Harrison. Prayer in the Night (pp. 7, 125). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.Some of us regularly pray “Night Prayer” from home too, either using the Lectio 365 app, or the Church of England “Time to Pray” app or website or the Northumbria Community website
We stop and allow the day we have actually lived to come into God’s presence. There is space for reflection and, often, penitence, with a sandtimer holding the space.
The Word of God and Silent Contemplation
We pray a psalm, hear a short passage of Scripture and then hold a ten minutes silence, perhaps to reflect or to simply rest in God's presence. Our large Northstowe sand timer helps us hold that space without somebody needing to watch the clock. Afterwards respond with words Christians have prayed across generations. The Nunc dimittis — Simeon’s song of peace at the end of life and at the end of the day — draws us towards rest.
In silence, we hold before God ourselves, other people and the world, before sharing in the "collect" - a prayer to collect together our prayers and those of others praying with us in homes and chapels around the world.
Finally we entrust ourselves to God’s keeping through the night and receive a blessing.
Those who want to can simply go home, allowing the last words they speak that evening to have been words addressed to God. It can feel slightly strange the first time. We have found it wonderfully freeing.
Sometimes, we meet up again outside to chat as we walk home, or to head on to the Tap and Social for a final drink.
