Compline; Prayer Before Sleep

I’ve decided I’m going to record Compline, the Prayer before Sleep, for every day of the week. We’re living through angry, crazed, hate-filled, anxiety-ridden times.

Monastics pray Compline either in community or alone, depending upon the house, but it is always prayed, and since it is meant to be prayed in the night, the Office is kept short, so as to be easily memorized (saved on candles). For monastics, once Compline is prayed, the house is in Grand Silence until morning. Our secular equivalent might be turning off the tv, or the computer. Mental noise and monkey chatter is as invasive as the television.

Prayer before sleep can help us to be less anxious, and maybe a little more in-touch with our one-ness with our fellows; with how we all fall short, for none are perfect but Christ. It feels like we need it. Or, perhaps I am projecting my own need on to everyone else.

In any case, here is Night Prayer for Tuesdays. No chant.