Vesper

The Byzantine Rite has three basic types of vespers: Great vespers is used on Sundays and major feast days those when the Polyeleos is prescribed at matins when it may be celebrated alone or as part of an All-Night Vigil , as well as on a handful of special days e.

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Daily vespers is otherwise used. Small vespers is a very abbreviated form used only on the afternoon before a vigil and is redundant to the subsequent great vespers, being a place holder betwixt the ninth hour and compline and is seldom used except in monasteries where the vigil literally lasts all night. Since the liturgical day begins at sunset, vespers is a day's first service and its hymns introduce the day's themes. The general structure of the service is as follows psalm numbers are according to the Septuagint:. On strict fast days when food and drink are prohibited before vespers, e.

After the readings from the Old Testament , the Trisagion is chanted, followed by the Epistle and Gospel , and the Divine Liturgy proceeds normally from that point. On these occasions, as at other times when the Gospel is read at vespers, the Little Entrance is made with the Gospel Book instead of the censer.

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The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts always is similarly combined with Vespers, with the first half of Vespers up to and including the Old Testament readings making up a significant portion of the service. Vespers is the only service in the Armenian daily office other than the Morning Service which has hymns proper to the commemoration, feast, or tone assigned to it: Vespers undergoes a wide range of changes depending on the liturgical season.

The following outline contains only some of these variations. For all things, Lord, glory to you. At Sunday Vespers Saturday Evening: At Sunday Vespers Saturday Night: That the Lord will hearken to the voice of our entreaty Hymn After Psalm varies ; Proclamation: On Sundays during Eastertide: On Feasts of the Cross: Vespers is an introduction and preparation for the Liturgy, consisting of a collection of prayers, praises and Thanksgiving prayers which request the Lord's blessings upon the sacramental service.

Since its inception, the Anglican communion has maintained an evening office, which is called evening prayer or evensong. There are prescribed forms of the service in the Anglican prayer book.

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A similar form of the service is found in the Vespers section of The Lutheran Hymnal. The Anglican breviary contains Vespers in English according to the pre Roman rite. For information on that service, see above, as in the Roman breviary. Both publishing houses are affiliated with churches in the Reformed tradition.

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From its traditional usage, the term vespers has come to be used more broadly for various evening services of other churches, some of which model their evening services on the traditional Roman Catholic form. Presbyterians and Methodists , as well as congregationalist religious bodies such as Unitarian Universalism , often include congregational singing, readings, and a period of silent meditation, contemplation, or prayer. 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.

In addition, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, synagogues in the Classical Reform tradition sometimes referred to their Friday evening worship services as "vespers".

Vesper | Definition of Vesper by Merriam-Webster

Nowadays, such services are instead called kabbalat shabbat , which means "welcoming the Sabbath". This section incorporates information from the Catholic Encyclopedia of References to psalms follow the numbering system of the Septuagint , and said in the Latin of the Vulgate.

Pliny the Younger , in his famous letter at the beginning of the 2nd century, speaks of liturgical reunions of the Christians in the morning and in the evening: Vespers is, therefore, together with Vigils , the most ancient Office known in the Church. The Rule of St. Benedict was written about Much earlier than this we find an evening Office corresponding to both that of Vespers and that of Compline.

John Cassian calls it Vespertina synaxis , or Vespertina solemnitas. The name, however, by which it was most widely known during that period was Lucernalis or Lucernaria hora. It was so called because at this hour candles were lit, not only to give light, but also for symbolical purposes. The " Peregrinatio ", the date of which is probably the 4th century, gives the liturgical order as practised at Jerusalem.

In the " Antiphonary of Bangor ", an Irish document of the 6th century, Vespers are called hora duodecima , which corresponds to six o'clock in the evening, or hora incensi , or again ad cereum benedicendum. All these names are interesting to note. The hora incensi recalls the custom of burning incense at this hour, while at the same time the candles were lighted.

The ceremony of the lights at Vespers was symbolic and very solemn. Vespers, then, was the most solemn office of the day and was composed of the psalms called Lucernales Psalm is called psalmus lucernalis by the Apostolic Constitutions. Cassian describes this Office as it was celebrated by the monks of Egypt and says they recited twelve psalms as at vigils matins. Then two lessons were read as at Vigils, one from the Old, and the other from the New Testament. Each psalm was followed by a short prayer. Cassian says the Office was recited towards five or six o'clock and that all the lights were lit.

The use of incense, candles, and other lights would seem to suggest the Jewish rites which accompanied the evening sacrifice Exodus It may thus be seen that the Lucernarium was, together with Vigils , the most important part of the Offices of the day, being composed of almost the same elements as the latter, at least in certain regions. Its existence in the fourth century is also confirmed by St. Ephraem , and, a little later, by several councils in Gaul and Spain , and by the various monastic rules.

In the sixth century the Office of Vespers in the Latin Church was almost the same as it has been throughout the Middle Ages and up to the present day. In a document of unquestionable authority of that period the Office is described as follows: The evening hour, or vespertina synaxis , is composed of four psalms , a capitulum , a response, a hymn , a versicle, a canticle from the Gospel , litany Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison , Pater with the ordinary finale, oratio , or prayer, and dismissal Regula Sancti Benedicti , xvii.

The psalms recited are taken from the series of psalms from Pss. This disposition is almost the same as that of the " Ordo Romanus ", except that the number of psalms recited is five instead of four. They are taken, however, from the series to Here, too, we find the capitulum , versicle, and canticle of the " Magnificat ". The hymn is a more recent introduction in the Roman Vespers; the finale litanies, Pater , versicles, prayers seems all to have existed from this epoch as in the Benedictine cursus. Vesper time varied according to the season between the tenth hour 4 p.

As a matter of fact it was no longer the evening hour, but the sunset hour, so that it was celebrated before the day had departed and consequently before there was any necessity for artificial light Regula S. This is a point to be noted, as it was an innovation. Before this epoch this evening synaxis was celebrated with all the torches alight. The reason of this is that St Benedict introduced in the cursus, another hour—that of Compline —which was prescribed to be celebrated in the evening, and which might be considered as a kind of doubling of the Office of Lucernarium.

As has already been remarked, the institution of the office of compline transformed the lucernarium by taking from it something of its importance and symbolism, the latter at the same time losing its original sense.

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Benedict called it only Vespera , the name which has prevailed over that of lucernarium cf. Ducange, " Glossarium med. The Gallican liturgy , the Mozarabic Liturgy , and, to a certain extent, the Milanese , have preserved the lucernarium cf. The Eastern Orthodox Church retains the " Lumen hilare " and some other traces of the ancient lucernarium in the offices of vespers and compline cf.

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The awkward case of 'his or her'. Identify the word pairs with a common ancestor. Test your visual vocabulary with our question challenge! Build a city of skyscrapers—one synonym at a time. Examples of vesper in a Sentence Recent Examples on the Web: Joseph's Abbey preps for Oct. First Known Use of vesper Noun 14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 2 Adjective , in the meaning defined above.