Mpho Tutu van Furth: When I first entered seminary my father advised me to say the Daily Office. “The offices are there for you as a guard rail when your prayer life gets wonky”. He meant by that I did not have to rely on my own inner resources to sustain my prayer life. The offices are a round of daily prayer; Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer and Compline is what remains in more common use of the seven liturgies of the hours that were part of monastic life. The predawn liturgy of Lauds (praise), the dawn liturgy of Prime (first) and the mid-morning Terce (third) have collapsed into Morning Prayer; Sext (the sixth hour) and None (the ninth hour) have become noonday prayer, Vespers or Evensong remain the same and Compline (from the Latin completorium, meaning completion, at the end of the day) and the one nighttime canonical hour of night watch. In the tradition of the western church the offices are a set cycle of readings, songs and prayers. At Vrijburg we celebrate a monthly Evensong liturgy followed by a time of fellowship with a shared meal. I hope you will join us on the third Thursday of the month.

Evening prayer, April 20th, 2023