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On Compline

Thank you for your article on Compline, which when sung well by a choir, seems to be drawing large congregations in many cities around the USA. We always conclude our Vestry meetings with Compline, and when a Vestry member's mother died a few years ago,she took copies of the service to her home town in another state, so that members of the immediate family could gather and pray it together, before meeting the public.

William Bippus
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Marinette, Wisconsin, USA
16 September 2013

I am a Companion in the Episcopal Society of the Companions of Holy Cross. It is a laywoman's Intercessory Society. Over one hundred years old. We have a mother house in Byfield, Massachusetts.

Each night we have compline as the ending to our day, and when we return home we miss it greatly. Bless the churches which are giving this to their people. Thanks for enjoying it, as it sounds as though you have.

JC Eriksen
Grace Calvary, Cartersville, GA
Blairsville, GA
17 September 2013

Thank you so much for your beautiful article on Compline last week. A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending my first Compline service. I was moved by the atmosphere of peace and safety created by the candlelit sanctuary. It provided a calm, meditatitive space free from the usual visual distractions and an opportunity to reconnect with our Creator.  The overwhelming gentleness of the music, much like the points of lights from the candles, helped to focus an otherwise wandering mind. In what other religions is known as meditation or to come apart from the world for a while, was a shared opportunity to "Be still and know that I am God."  

I was ignorant of the meaning of Compline, but with the help of etymologyonline.com, I learned that the root meanings are "complete," and "to fill up." Complete. Something to complete our day, a satisfactory bookend to a morning ritual of prayer, a way to re-connect and remind us of our wholeness and completeness with and in God. For those who are weary, a filling up with the Holy Spirit, a refueling. A time to to come apart from the world and if we are feeling incomplete, to remember that we are complete in God.

As the author so aptly said, Compline is "transcendent and personal even when we celebrate it in community."  The personal experience of going within is such a profound, personal experience but oddly enough can be even more powerful when in a shared, structured environment. What I experienced that night was transcendent and connection in a traditional Christian manner; something that I had only previously experienced through meditation and other religious traditions.  It reminded me that despite our religious differences, we all desire to be "filled up" and are seeking to be reminded of our completeness in God.  And if we seek, we shall find.

Betsy Lawson
Unity of New York
New York, New York, USA
22 September 2013

Earlier letters

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