Vespers
Vespers is the evening prayer service in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox liturgies of the canonical hours. The word comes from Latin vesper, meaning "evening." The term is also used in some Protestant denominations to describe evening services.
The general structure of the Roman Catholic service of vespers is as follows:
- Vespers opens with the singing or chanting of the words Deus in adiutorium meum intende; Domine ad adiuvandum me festina. (O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.)
- A hymn is then sung;
- Anywhere from two to four psalms are then sung, with the psalms concluding in a doxology and answered by an antiphon.
- After the psalms, there is a reading from the New Testament.
- Following the reading, the participants sing the Magnificat, the canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary from the Gospel of Luke I:46-55.
- Then a litany is recited, the Lord's Prayer, and a closing prayer.
The psalms and hymns of the Vespers service have attracted the interest of many composers, including Claudio Monteverdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Anton Bruckner, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
See also: Mass (music); requiem; sacred music; Book of Hours; Matins
From the traditional Christian Vespers, the term has come to be used more broadly for various evening services. In the Unitarian Universalist church, there is often a vespers service which involves singing by the congregation but also includes a period of silence for meditation and contemplation.
Some regular community vespers services are completely areligious (or at least are not sponsored by any church) and serve simply as a time for quiet contemplation in the evening hours.
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