By Crosier Father Kermit Holl
In the waning hours of each day, as its busyness begins to settle towards evening marking the shift from daytime to night, clerics and members of religious communities and many of the faithful enter into an hour of prayer that is called “vespers” from its Latin root meaning of “evening” or “shadows” amidst the sun’s setting. Oftentimes vespers is also called “evening prayer,” as well, to make its intent more apparent to the wider community. Through this ritual, which is a lynchpin “hour” of significance within the Church’s traditional seven daily “Hours” of prayer, those gathered for vespers make an offering of thanks to God for the gift of the day while also offering a sacrifice of praise to the One who has carried us through it.
Not unsurprisingly, as vespers is the “Hour” which takes place as we transition into dusk, another of its early titles was “Lucernarium,” meaning “the time of lighting lamps.” While the later Hour of “night prayer” is more deliberate toward pushing back the unknown fears of the night very present among our ancient ancestors, vespers is the front porch for praying the Lord to be with us as we are approaching a more vulnerable time in darkness, as well.
The origins and structure of vespers were inherited by the Christian community from our Jewish roots based upon the sacrificial offering made to God in the Temple each evening at sunset. In present practices, diocesan clerics generally use a form of vespers called the “breviary,” which essentially means “a small compilation” of the texts, while most religious communities use a text called the “Liturgy of the Hours” which is more adapted to their communal prayer style and very often includes “Propers” (special texts) that are “proper” to their unique characteristics. But for all, the “Liturgy of the Hours” is a structure of prepared prayer which seeks to keep one or a community in the mindset of Jesus’ command to “pray always” across the daily phases of the earth’s rotation from sunrise to sunset.
Desiring this sacred prayer time to be more accessible for its wider adoption, the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council included significant changes in the praying of vespers by monastics and in religious communities. Thus, it was more resolutely set at a time relevant to its ethos, and the language to be used was reformed from Latin to the local, vernacular tongue.
The structure of the “Hour” of vespers, not too dissimilar from the other “Hours” across the day, follows ancient Jewish tradition with an introductory hymn of praise; a series of psalms (often three or four) which can also include other Hebrew and Christian scriptural texts; a reading from Scripture; the “Magnificat of Mary” which she proclaimed in response to the Annunciation; intercessory prayers for the world; the Lord’s Prayer; and finally, the ending “Collect” prayer. Other elements that flavor this mix include any “Propers” to the day or season or community gathered, as well as the silence necessary to let all the words and songs and good news sink deeply into our hearts.
Sometimes vespers become “Solemn Vespers,” and this is usually to indicate either a celebration of a particular feast or season (for example, Advent or Lent) or for Sundays, always the great day of resurrection. Elements that are used to add more solemnity might include changes to the church environment, special vesture for the ministers or community, the use of incense, greater use of silence, and the inclusion of any “Propers.”
Thus, for all in the Church, vespers can be our communion in an ancient “Hour” during which solemn prayer is offered to God and gratitude for the day falls from our mouths. As vespers text Psalm 141 asks so succinctly, “May our prayers rise like incense, our hands like an evening sacrifice.”
Pictured above: Crosiers pray evening prayer at the Seek Conference in Salt Lake City Jan 2. (Photo by Lisa Cassidy / Crosier Fathers and Brothers)