Wednesdays during Lent, March 12- April 16 | 7:30 pm | St. Mary's Chapel -
The Order for Compline in our Book of Common Prayer is a short, quiet, contemplative service of prayer and thanksgiving that is meant for use just before we retire to our beds for the night. It draws on traditions and prayers from medieval times when Compline was the last of the daily prayer services that were said in monastic communities.
One of the most beloved of the Compline prayers (at page 134 of the BCP) begins "Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night..." and has inspired a book-length meditation by Tish Harrison Warren called Prayer in the Night. In it she describes what happens when we choose not to pray in our own words for our own needs and the concerns of our day, but instead to pray in words passed down to us for human needs that are universal in every age: our spirits are lifted out of our acute concerns and expand toward the timeless and eternal, satisfying our craving for beauty and wonder.
Weekly during Advent and Lent, and approximately twice a month in other seasons, on Wednesday evenings at 7:30 the small chapel at St. John's becomes a space for candlelit silence, meditation, contemplative prayer, and Compline. During Lent we will resume this practice weekly, beginning March 12.
Everyone is welcome to join in our Wednesday evening practice. Participants have invited their friends and neighbors by invitations sent through their social media and neighborhood listservs. Please come and experience for yourself what this ancient spiritual practice can do for you. "O taste and see how gracious the Lord is" (Ps. 34:8).
- Walter Smith