'Towards the approach of natural darkness': on the Third Collect at Evensong

Continuing with extracts from John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we turn to the Third Collect at Evensong, for Aid against all Perils. Strangely, and despite noting how the other daily collects are taken from ancient Latin sacramentaries, Shepherd does not refer to this Collect being found in the Gelasian Sacramentary. Instead, in a footnote, he roots it in a prayer from the Euchologion of the Greek Church, which includes the petition "dispel all darkness from our hearts, and vouchsafe to us the sun of righteousness". The quotation in the extract below is also from this prayer:

Though their titles are different, the third collects at Morning and Evening Prayer bear a considerable resemblance to each other: and both of them are peculiarly well adapted for the situations they respectively hold. That for the morning, appears to be more immediately directed, against the dangers and temptations, to which we may be exposed, in the course of the day. In this for the evening, towards the approach of natural darkness, we beseech God, to "enlighten the eyes of our understandings, that we sleep not in our sins unto death," and to defend us from all the dangers and perils that may ensue in the night. We commit ourselves to the protection of him, who neither slumbers, nor sleeps, and to whom darkness and light are both alike.

This is another example of Shepherd beautifully capturing the meaning and attraction of these collects. Just as the Third Collect at Matin prepares us for the day that lies before us, so the Third Collect at Evensong prepares us for "the approach of natural darkness", for day's end. He draws out how this collect flows from and is underpinned by the deeply evocative language of the Psalter, as we turn towards evening. It is a description which reminds us of the richness of these daily collects at Cranmerian Morning and Evening Prayer, gathering up the beginning of day and the end of day in prayer.

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