Evening Prayer, or Evensong when it is sung, is the Church's prayer at the close of the day, and it belongs to what we call the Daily Office. That word office comes from the Latin officium, meaning a duty or a service rendered. By evening the day's work is done, or has been abandoned unfinished, and neither the successes nor the failures can now be altered. The Church sings to God anyway.

Sung Evening Prayer belongs to the major feast days. During this time of renewal, we'll keep most major feasts by chanting the offices in plainsong from the Hymnal 1982 and other sources, running about an hour, and followed by a short reading and a period of silence.

At the heart of the office stands the Magnificat, Mary's song of a God who scatters the proud and lifts up the lowly. It is sung every evening, in every season, and it is worth noticing that the Church appointed it for the hour when we are least able to pretend we are the ones in charge.

Anglicans have prayed this office in English since 1549, when Archbishop Cranmer took the eight offices of the monastic day and drew them into two. Matins, Lauds, and Prime became the morning office; Vespers and Compline became the evening. What had been the discipline of monks became the discipline of ordinary Christians. That is still its purpose. The psalms are said through in course, the Scriptures are read at length, and the same canticles return evening after evening until they are no longer something we read but something we know.

If you have not prayed the Office before, come and sit with us. There will be an order of service to follow, and you are as welcome to listen as to sing.