Evening Prayers
Evening prayer closes the day: what happened, what went wrong, what you are handing back to God before sleeping.
These include short bedtime prayers, prayers of protection for the night, and prayers from compline, which the church has prayed at nightfall for well over a thousand years.
20 prayers
- A Collect for Aid Against All Perils
The evening collect of the Book of Common Prayer, drawn from the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary. Written in an age when night meant real…
- A Prayer for Peace of Mind
A contemporary pastoral prayer woven from Psalm 46:10, Psalm 131, and Psalm 127:2. It is written for rumination — the mental loop that…
- A Prayer for the Protection of the Home
A contemporary prayer of household protection, closing with Psalm 4:8. The blessing of a dwelling is one of the oldest Christian domestic…
- Act of Contrition
The traditional prayer of repentance, prayed in the confessional and at the end of each day. It moves deliberately from imperfect…
- Evening Prayer of St. Basil the Great
One of the evening prayers of St. Basil the Great (330–379), Archbishop of Caesarea, preserved in the Orthodox prayer book and in the…
- John Henry Newman — Support Us All the Day Long
Adapted from a sermon by St. John Henry Newman (1801–1890) and now found in Anglican, Catholic, and Methodist prayer books. It is prayed at…
- Keep Watch, Dear Lord
An ancient Compline collect attributed to St. Augustine and carried into the Book of Common Prayer. It is the classic prayer for insomnia…
- Let God Arise (Prayer of the Precious Cross)
One of the central protective prayers of the Christian East, prayed at Compline and at the blessing of the cross, and often at bedtime in…
- Luther's Evening Prayer
The evening companion to Luther's morning prayer, from the Small Catechism (1529). Luther added a practical instruction after it: "Then go…
- Night Prayer (Compline)
Compline is the Church's last prayer of the day, prayed by monks before the great silence since at least the sixth century and codified in…
- Nunc Dimittis (The Song of Simeon)
These are the words of the aged Simeon in the Temple as he took the infant Jesus in his arms (Luke 2:29-32), having been promised he would…
- Phos Hilaron (O Gracious Light)
Perhaps the oldest Christian hymn still in daily use outside of Scripture, sung at the lighting of the evening lamps by at least the third…
- Prayer in Time of Anxiety
A contemporary prayer for anxious nights, in the tradition of the psalms of lament, which never pretend the distress away but speak it…
- Prayer of St. Ioannikios
Four lines by St. Ioannikios the Great (752–846), a soldier who became a hermit on Mount Olympus. The prayer is sung at Orthodox Compline…
- Psalm 134 — Bless Ye the Lord, All Ye Servants of the Lord
The last Song of Ascents, and the shortest night prayer in scripture: three verses for those who stand by night in the house of the Lord.…
- Psalm 16 — Preserve Me, O God
A psalm of confidence in which the believer takes God as his portion and cup. St. Peter quotes it at Pentecost as a prophecy of the…
- Te Lucis Ante Terminum (Before the Ending of the Day)
The ancient hymn of Compline, in use since at least the seventh century and translated into English by J. M. Neale in 1852. Monks have sung…
- The Daily Examen of St. Ignatius
A structured evening review drawn from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (1548). Ignatius considered it the one practice a…
- The Second Collect, for Peace (Evening Prayer)
The evening collect for peace from the Book of Common Prayer, itself a translation of an ancient Latin collect used in the Gelasian…
- Three Hail Marys Devotion
A short morning and evening devotion promoted by St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn in the thirteenth century and later by St. Alphonsus Liguori.…