Evening Prayer: Reclaiming and living our Liturgical Tradition

Throughout Lent this year, Evening Prayer was offered to Henley Parish. People from the Parish and elsewhere, gathered together on Friday evenings for the duration of the Lenten Season to partake in something that for many was a new and unique experience, but I would like to think, not an isolated one.

Earlier on, in January this year, I spoke at all Mass times one weekend and informed the various congregations about my plan to offer Evening Prayer to the Parish with an extended invitation. The response was very positive, with quite a number expressing interest and support for the idea. What I found most fascinating in this process was that a number of people approached me after Mass to say they had never heard of the Liturgy of the Hours and also didn’t know what to really expect if they were to come to Evening Prayer. What was the format? What was the structure? What’s actually going to happen? What are we going to do? These were the questions being asked.

The lack of information and knowledge about what Evening Prayer is - which was expressed by many Henley Parishioners was interesting, but not really surprising.

The Liturgy of the Hours, has also gone by the name of the Divine Office, or Breviary, and, nearly exclusively, has been a Liturgical practice only celebrated by cloistered religious communities and the clergy. Some Liturgical scholars would argue that such a format of prayer at set times of the day has been with us from the earliest moments of Christendom, with many Jewish religious practices and observances fusing themselves to become what we now know to be the Liturgy of the Hours.

From its Jewish ancestry, the consecration of time in the early Christian Church had taken root by middle to late antiquity and certainly by the time of St Augustine in the fifth century, variations of the Liturgy of the Hours in both a monastic and ‘Cathedral-style’ had taken root and become very much an intrinsic part of people’s prayer life, both in the West and in the East for clergy and laity alike.

This developed throughout the centuries, with a growing tendency for the Hours to be celebrated in only monastic settings, as religious and clergy not connected to the cloister were driven into missionary works (i.e.: the Jesuits, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart etc) and consequently could not commit the time necessary to honor the complete daily cycle of the Liturgy of the Hours, known as the Horarium.

So, more and more, the Hours became a liturgical celebration only experienced by monks, cloistered sisters and also clergy who were able to carry with them a portable collection of daily readings known as the Breviary. It was a foreign liturgical practice to the laity not readily accessible for centuries – until Vatican II.

Sacrosanctum Concilium, Vatican II’s prime document on the Liturgy urged for all religious to engage with the richness of spiritual treasures found in the Liturgy of the Hours, but also put the invitation out to all lay people; ‘The laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually.’ (S.C. 100)

The documents of Vatican II are essentially only 40 years young and we have a long way to go to fully reap the benefits and richness of ideas that were presented. I believe the Liturgy of the Hours and moments of daily prayer like Evening Prayer are yet to be widely rediscovered and reclaimed. For many of us, we simply do not know of the existence of such prayer. Over 1500 years of liturgical tradition that for the most part has not been experienced in the public sphere of the laity – is unlikely to change over night…even in 40 years since Vatican II!! This much was made clear from the partially confused response I received from many parishioners when I flagged the idea in January 2005.

However, I also believe by offering Evening Prayer, in a parish setting like we did this Lent at Henley, will undoubtedly give people an experience of what it is actually about and begin to raise awareness of it - and perhaps even move people towards integrating into their own prayer life. It is a largely untapped area of our liturgical tradition which has all kinds of potential possibilities and applications. I would like to return to this point later on.

Wherever possible, I attempted to utilise music during Evening Prayer. This proved to be a very powerful and attractive part of the whole experience for people. I took the line of thought when preparing for Evening Prayer very similar to what David Haas suggests when he says; ‘It is one thing to say Alleluia…and it’s another thing to sing it!’

To give you an idea as to what actually happened on any given night, I will attempt now to describe the format and structure of Evening Prayer as it happened at Henley…

People entered the Church via the foyer areas which had a little table with a candle burning. Welcomers were present to greet people as they came in and were given handouts to accompany the evening’s prayer.

Upon entering the Church, people may have thought they were at the Monday night candle lit Mass…as the Church was dimly lit with some quiet instrumental music playing in the background. Indeed, this kind of ambience so familiar to us at the candle lit Mass was something I deliberately wanted to establish and link in people’s minds. My original idea was to have Evening Prayer offered on a Friday night in a similar, atmospheric and ambient manner complete with candles so that the week could in a sense be ‘bookended’ on the Monday evening with Mass and then on Friday evening with Evening Prayer. I hope it worked. I think it did.

We began at 8:30pm sharp every week and began with me welcoming and greeting people. A few cursory thoughts were given, usually linking the Gospel of the previous weekend and how that was sitting with us as we were moving towards the Gospel of the next weekend.

Following this, the Service of Light began utilizing a sung antiphon while someone processed down the centre aisle of the Church with a candle to then arrive at the foot of the Sanctuary to light our ‘Christ Light’. This ‘Christ Light’ was in fact Lemon Essence which we have used here in Henley on occasions such as Pentecost and the annual Mass of Remembrance. It was a stunning visual element to the drama of the unfolding Liturgy.

Following the Service of Light, was a hymn that spoke to the themes of evening. Songs which were used at these times were rotated and included ‘At Evening’ by David Haas and ‘God of Day and God of Darkness’ by Marty Haugen.

Next came the first Psalm for the evening which was always a sung setting of Psalm 141 which reads ‘Let my prayers rise up like incense’. As this psalm was sung, incense was burned – again a very powerful symbol that tapped into the senses of sight and smell! The setting of Psalm 141 remained constant throughout Lent.

After a brief silence, the second psalm was sung and this psalm was different each week. The second psalms were all composed by myself and were simple antiphonal style pieces that were very quickly learned so that participation of the gathered faithful was at a maximum.

In response to the psalms, a short New Testament Canticle was sung and this was set each week based on a passage from Revelation.

After another silence, a passage of scripture was read. This was the first reading of that day’s Mass and for Lent this year, those readings were taken from many of the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and others. These proved to be very rich texts that provided many Lenten themes to be extracted for a detailed reflection. A reflection was then given on the reading and tied in Lenten themes and ways in which we can live out the underlying messages explored from the reading in practical and active ways.

This reflection on the Word was then highlighted further by a sung setting of the Magnificat. The version used throughout our Lenten Evening Prayer was a setting that appears on Marty Haugen’s 1990 ‘Now the Feast and Celebration/ Holden Evening Prayer’ recording and was particularly lovely.

General Intercessions were then offered with a sung response to each prayer, with time at the end of the set written prayers for spontaneous petitions. The culmination of all of this prayer was a collective singing of the Lord’s Prayer which was a new ‘evening’ setting I had composed especially for Evening Prayer.

To conclude, a Presider spoke a concluding prayer and then I sang a sung blessing. A sign of peace was then exchanged between all who were present and while this was happening, I either lead the singing of ‘Prayer for Peace by David Haas, ‘Watch, O Lord’ by Marty Haugen or a setting of the Nunc Dimittis.

And that, in a nutshell, is how we experienced Evening Prayer at Henley for this Lent!

There were many positive things that came out of conducting Evening Prayer this year. Firstly, the experience itself for the participants. Many people, who came, were very moved by the impact of the liturgy itself and commented very positively on it. Some said the use of music was a highlight. Others said the use of symbols such as the fire of the Lemon Essence and the incense added an extra sensory dimension to the process. Some made particular comment about the impact and relevance of the reflections on the Scripture that were given each week. Many commented that it was a very fitting way to mark the Lenten period.

But perhaps the most frequent comment that came was ‘Are we going to have this again at Henley?’

On a personal level, I have found the whole journey of preparing and actually offering Evening Prayer to be a very faith enriching and empowering experience. When I started to think about how Evening Prayer could be offered at Henley, I was basically starting from scratch. I certainly had never experienced the Liturgy of the Hours in a predominately sung format like I was hoping to offer, (as a matter of fact, I hadn’t experienced the Liturgy of the Hours at all!!), so I had to research the area, read a lot of books and listen to a lot of music to see what might work. It was very time consuming!

This process alone was fascinating and gave me a good grounding in the structure and flow of the format of Evening Prayer so I could prayerfully lead the sessions with confidence.

In addition to the format research of Evening Prayer was the rather difficult choice of which musical settings of the psalms should be used. Part of this process was the actual composition of Psalms, responses and Canticles which I did. This above all, was probably the most time consuming element of the whole process – and also the most rewarding. As each setting of the Psalms was being composed, it gave me a greater sense of appreciation for the Psalms and the way they can be used in one’s prayer life. My spirituality has been deepened and made richer through this experience and realisation of scriptural based song.

An unexpected and really pleasing outcome of my Evening Prayer experience this Lent has been the adaptation of Evening Prayer into our own family’s prayer life at home. Following Lent, we began a ‘mini Evening Prayer’ every night before our boys go to bed. Each night, a candle is lit (which at first, reminded the boys of the candles on a birthday cake and they were very excited!!). The Service of Light Antiphon is sung as we did it at Henley. We then give thanks and praise to God for one positive thing we have experienced that day and each take a turn to say that followed by an ‘Amen’ at the end of the prayer. We then light a stick of incense and sing the refrain of Psalm 141. The songs are short and simple and have been easy for our boys Declan (4) and Darcy (2) to pick up and sing. Our nightly Evening Prayer at home is something that our boys actually ask us to do each night and they are very much active participants in the liturgy. It’s really great to watch.

In a similar way, I have been able to adapt the format of Evening Prayer used at Henley for a recent Year 11 Retreat I directed at Loreto College. On this occasion, I also offered Morning Prayer on the second day of the retreat and the girls responded very positively to the symbols, music and structure in both instances.

While all of this has been happening, I have been studying my Masters in Theology which has dovetailed very nicely to all these varied set of experiences. Over the course of the first semester this year at Uni, I met with a lady from Seacombe Gardens Parish who was in some of my classes. After telling her of my experiences here at Henley with Evening Prayer, she became very excited and after some initial discussions we are now working in partnership towards Seacombe Gardens Parish hosting Evening Prayer in Lent 2006 which will be offered to the entire southern region of parishes.

Over the next six months, while I am assisting Seacombe Gardens to prepare for their own experience of Evening Prayer, I too will be preparing for the next chapter of Evening Prayer at Henley. It promises to be prayerful and inspiring journey...I look forward to sharing the time with you in Lent 2006.