![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() “Night prayer is the last prayer of the day, said before retiring, even if that is after midnight.”(5)Īt the end of each day, the Office of Compline uncovers for us, once again, the nature of our Christian pilgrimage on this earth, that is, the daily conversion of life to Christ, which is, at one and the same time, the daily turning away from sin and death. The Fathers at the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, likewise, gave the following norm regarding Compline in the reform of the Divine Office: “Compline is to be so composed that it will be a suitable for the end of the day.”(4) Accordingly, the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, published after the Council, stipulates: In the General Rubrics of the Breviarium Romanum, as it was restored by decree of the Ecumenical Council of Trent, we read:Ĭompline is most fittingly said by all who are obliged to the recitation of the Divine Office, but, above all, in religious families, as the final prayer at the end of the day, even if, for a just reason, Matins of the following day will have already been anticipated (3) Given the importance of the Office of Compline as the Hour which ends the day before sleep, the Church, in her liturgical discipline, has insisted that Compline should always be her final public prayer of the day. The Christian pilgrimage of each day, through the Office of Compline, is consistently placed within the context of the pilgrimage of a lifetime, which reaches its destiny in death, in the passage, with Christ, from our earthly home to the lasting home which He has prepared for us in Heaven.(2) This Office, which concludes the day, commences by a warning of the dangers of the night: then immediately follows the public confession of our sins, as a powerful means of propitiating the divine justice, and obtaining God’s help, now that we are going to spend so many hours in the unconscious, and therefore dangerous, state of sleep, which is also such an image of death(1). It embraces the experience of the whole day which has passed and, at the same time, the experience of sleep, the abandonment of self to unconsciousness, which is, for us, a daily anticipation of death, of the passage from this life to the life which is to come.Ībbot Prosper Guéranger, O.S.B., commenting on the Office of Compline for the Season of Advent, in what is now known as the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, observed: It is the Church’s last prayer of the day, her prayer before retiring. Among the Hours, the Office of Compline has a distinct importance. The Church, through the Liturgy of the Hours, an important part of her public prayer, sanctifies each hour of every day of our lives. ( To proceed to Examples and practice files, click here. At this link, please see why the book by Father Weber is a very good investment. To sing the night prayer of Compline as a community, we must first have the same book. ![]()
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