Compline (Night Prayer)

Compline — from the Latin completorium, meaning "completion" — is the last of the canonical hours, prayed at the close of the day just before retiring to sleep. It brings to a close the great cycle of daily prayer that begins with Vigils (Matins) in the night, moves through Lauds at dawn, and proceeds through the little hours of Terce, Sext, and None to Vespers at evening and finally Compline at bedtime. Where morning prayer consecrates the first fruits of the day, Compline surrenders it entirely back to God. The precise origins of Compline as a distinct office are traced to the Rule of Saint Benedict, composed around 516 AD at Monte Cassino in central Italy. Chapter XVII of the Rule assigns specific psalms to each of the eight daily offices, and Benedict devotes Chapter XVIII to the detailed arrangement of Compline. He prescribed three psalms to be recited each night — traditionally Psalms 4, 91, and 134 — and directed that the office be the same every day of the week, unlike the other hours whose psalms rotated. This invariability was deliberate: Compline was to be memorized so thoroughly that it could be prayed even in darkness. Benedict's prescriptions have shaped the practice of Compline across all Western monastic traditions to the present day. The three psalms Benedict chose for Compline are among the most apt in the entire Psalter for night prayer. Psalm 4 — "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety" (v. 8) — is a movement from distress to trust, ending in a declaration that God alone is the security the soul needs when the world's agitations cease. Psalm 91, the great psalm of divine protection, was understood in the early Church as a protection against the demons of the night: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day" (v. 5). Its opening verses — "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty" — have served as the beginning of countless night prayers. Psalm 134, the shortest of the pilgrimage psalms, calls the servants of the Lord who stand in the temple by night to lift their hands and bless God — a vision of ceaseless prayer that transcends the sleep the monk is about to take. The core structure of Compline has remained remarkably stable across fifteen centuries. The office begins with a versicle and response, often drawn from Psalm 70: "O God, make speed to save me; O Lord, make haste to help me." A brief examination of conscience follows, leading to a short act of confession. Then come the psalms, a brief Scripture reading (lectio brevis), a hymn, and the versicle. The heart of Compline, theologically, is the antiphon that accompanies the canticle: "Save us, O Lord, waking; guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace." The canticle itself is the Nunc Dimittis — Simeon's song from Luke 2:29-32 — in which the aged prophet, having seen the infant Christ, asks to be dismissed in peace. Its placement at the very end of the day carries profound meaning: each night's sleep is a small rehearsal of death, a trust that God holds us through the darkness as He held Simeon through his long waiting. The concluding prayer of Compline — "Visit, O Lord, this dwelling, and drive far from it all the snares of the enemy" — is the ancient Visita, a prayer for divine protection through the night against the spiritual powers of darkness that Christian tradition associated with the hours of sleep. The final blessing and the Marian antiphon (in Catholic tradition) bring the day fully to rest. The practice of Compline spread far beyond Benedictine monasteries. Cluniac and Cistercian reforms of the medieval period elaborated it while retaining Benedict's core. By the high medieval period, Compline was observed by cathedral chapters, collegiate churches, and parish clergy throughout Europe. The Book of Common Prayer of 1549 did not retain Compline as a separate office, folding its elements into the new Evening Prayer; however, in the twentieth century, many Anglican communities recovered it, and it appears in official supplementary liturgies for both the Church of England and The Episcopal Church. The Roman Catholic Church retained Compline through the Tridentine period and, in the liturgical reform of Vatican II, restored it as Night Prayer (Completorium) in the revised Liturgy of the Hours of 1971. Compline has also exercised an unusual fascination on secular observers and lapsed Christians. The composer Thomas Tallis set the Compline hymn Te lucis ante terminum in his famous forty-part motet. Bach and countless composers before and after him set the Nunc Dimittis. The weekly Compline services at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle became, beginning in the 1950s, one of the longest-running and most attended non-Sunday services in American Christianity, drawing large crowds precisely because of Compline's combination of solemnity, beauty, and brevity. There is something in the ancient night prayer that speaks even to those who have otherwise drifted from regular worship.

Compline is ideally prayed in near-darkness or by candlelight, in silence, as the final act of the day. Its brevity — the full traditional office takes no more than ten to fifteen minutes — is itself a feature, not a concession. The soul is tired at the day's end; what is needed is not exertion but release. Begin by setting aside whatever occupied you last. The practice of a brief examination of conscience before Compline is ancient and salutary: not a morbid raking over failures but a simple, quiet review of the day. Where did I fail in love, in patience, in honesty? Where did God's grace appear, perhaps unrecognized at the time? This examination prepares the brief confession that follows — a short acknowledgment that the day is being surrendered to God not as a perfectly accomplished thing but as a broken gift, trusting in His mercy. The three psalms of Compline (Psalms 4, 91, and 134 in the Benedictine arrangement; Psalms 91 and 134 in the BCP Night Prayer) are the proper heart of the office. Read or chant them slowly. Psalm 91 is particularly powerful when prayed at night: let each image — the shadow of the Almighty, the cover of His feathers, the shield and buckler of His truth, the protection from the terror by night — become a conscious act of entrustment. You are not simply reading ancient poetry; you are placing yourself and those you love under God's protection for the hours you will be unconscious. The short Scripture reading (the lectio brevis) in the traditional Compline is 1 Peter 5:8-9: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith." This is a bracing note in what might seem an overly soothing service — a reminder that sleep is not merely physical rest but a moment of spiritual vulnerability, and that the night is commended to God precisely because we cannot watch over ourselves. The Nunc Dimittis — "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" — is the jewel of Compline. Pray Simeon's words as your own: having seen enough of God's goodness in the day that has passed, you are content to lay down consciousness and rest. The parallel between sleep and death, which the ancient prayer does not shy from, is spiritually clarifying rather than morbid: to pray Compline regularly is to practice, in small daily increments, the trust in God that one will need at life's actual end. The closing prayer — "Visit, O Lord, this dwelling, and drive far from it all the snares of the enemy; let thy holy angels dwell herein to preserve us in peace" — extends the prayer's scope from the individual soul to the household and to all who will sleep this night. It is appropriate to name those you love as you pray it. For families, Compline can be adapted as a brief bedtime liturgy for children: a psalm, a short prayer, the Nunc Dimittis, and a blessing. The habit formed in childhood of ending each day with God in prayer may be one of the most durable gifts a parent can give.