What is Vespers?
Vespers is an evening prayer service and if you have attended a Holden Evening Prayer service, you have already been to a Vespers service. You will notice that the words in the new hymnal are the same words as in the Holden Evening Prayer. Vespers isn’t new though. It has a long history stretching back to early Christianity. Vespers refers to prayers generally said in the evening and following a prescribed set of psalms and order of worship, but without the Eucharist. (We have brought Communion into this service so that our Saturday night worship will meet the needs of Advent’s congregation.) Vespers was part of a larger ritual of daily prayer called the “Divine Office” or “Liturgy of the Hours” that was part of monastic life from the 6th century and onward. It has roots in both the Old and New Testament. In the early church, Christians devoted themselves to prayer at fixed times of the day. Traditionally, Vespers took place between 4 and 6 PM or at sunset. The Vespers of the 6th centu
