Community Talk

Vespers
When we gather together on a Wednesday night,
we celebrate Vespers, the evening prayer of the church.

We sing Hymns and Psalms,
Participate in Prayers and Readings
and sit in Silence.
We do all of this to praise God,
trying to hear the still, small voice.
We bring the moods and madness of our busy day,
and try to see God’s presence in our relationships and tasks,
We allow healing and integration to begin.

As we chant the psalms and hear the reading proclaimed
We see God’s action is history,
through the lives of his people in Old and New Testaments.
It is their story, but it is our story as well.
Struggling, rejoicing, stressed and relaxed
The moods of scripture speak to us
of the God who is present in every moment and mood of our lives,
and whose love longs to bring healing and peacefulness
into the mystery of our daily life.

The high point of our Vespers Prayer
Is the long period of silence,
followed by our proclamation of the Magnificat,
the Song of Mary.
In the silence we bring our very selves to God
The deepest parts of who we are.
With or without words
we place our true selves into God’s mystery
We can truly proclaim
“My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour”

Our prayer tonight is also, perhaps most importantly
Celebrated as a community.
A community of friends
A community of Christians
A community of seekers

We bring our history as people,
We bring the history of our group, with its own celebrations and struggles
And we bring our hopes for our groups future
We place all of these in the presence of God
And they bring a reality, a groundedness to our prayer.

When we join hands at the Our Father
When we smile at each other over coffee
Or lovingly embrace each other on parting
We are reminded that God is with us

Vespers prayer is the prayer that brings us together as a community.
Not just into each other’s physical presence
But into each others depth.
It is a gift we can carry with us
For Vespers is also the act of “Lighting the lamps”
Bringing light to the homes at evening
Not only light to our homes,
but also to our lives.

May we let the light of vespers,
The God we have met in word, song and silence
Shine outwards into the rest of our lives.