Compline

 Fifteenth Wednesday after Pentecost

Since I will be out tomorrow with a Colonoscopy, I moved the usual Thursday Prayer and Worship day to Wednesday. 

In the late-1980's I was asked to be Chair of the Worship Committee at Christ UMC in Greensboro. I had served as a member of the committee for the previous two years. I also met weekly with the Senior Minister and one of the Associates for something like a worship education session, where we all put our heads together on what we had been reading, learning, and experiencing in worship. I was considered something like the worship guru of the church.

At my first meeting as Chair of the Worship Committee, a meeting that began at 7:30 in the evening, I did something different, something that had never been done before, something that had never even been thought of before--I closed the Worship Committee meeting with worship. 

Christ Church had a beautiful chapel, which would hold about 50-60 people. It was an ideal setting for a small worship service. In the Daily Office the services commonly done these days are Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, especially Morning Prayer (Anglicans call it "Lauds"). Many Episcopal churches have morning prayer at least one morning during the week. The full Daily Office, which monks and nuns do, and maybe a few others, contains the following:

Morning Prayer (Lauds)

Mid-Morning Prayer (Terce)

Mid-Day Prayer (Sext)

Mid-Afternoon Prayer (None)

Evening Prayer (Vespers or Evensong)

Compline (Night Prayer)

Vigil (Mid-Night Matins)

For the Worship Committee's worship every month, we did the service of Compline. After the business of the meeting was over, we adjourned to the Chapel. I did a quick change into Alb, Stole, Cross, Cincture. I in fact became astonishingly adept at this quick change. Of the many ways to tie a cincture (the Episcopalians have names for all of them), I learned that I could do the larkspur knot quickest. 

Compline is a beautiful service. I used the one in the Book of Common Prayer, but there are others. The service takes about 12 minutes. It has the effect of relaxing people, of preparing them for sleep. I had numerous people tell me that they slept better after Compline. 

Here is one of the prayers that may be used in the service of Compline:

"Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." (BCP, p.133).

Have prayers for me for tomorrow. The blog will return on Friday.

Faithfully,

Christian