Choral Evensong

Join us for Choral Evensong in Ascensiontide on Wednesday, May 20 at 7pm. A wonderful opportunity to pause for prayer at the midpoint of the week, Choral Evensong is a service of sung evening prayer primarily led by the choir.

Unfortunately this evenings service will not be livestreamed.

About Choral Evensong

The origins of Choral Evensong go back many centuries, and have their roots in the ancient patterns of monastic worship, which were based on the regular singing of all 150 psalms and the systematic reading of the Bible. Brief services, or offices, were said or sung throughout the day and night, in accordance with St. Paul’s instruction to ‘pray without ceasing’, so that the whole of the daily routine of monks and nuns could be sanctified and offered to God. In the aftermath of the Reformation in England, the first Book of Common Prayer (published in 1549) combined elements from a number of the monastic offices to form the dual services of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, or Evensong. Each has as its central feature the recitation or singing of the Psalms; readings from Scripture; and prayers for the Church, the world, and those in need. Both services have fixed songs or canticles associated with them, including the Magnificat (the Song of Mary from St. Luke’s Gospel) and the Nunc dimittis (the Song of Simeon from St. Luke’s Gospel) at Evensong. This format was formalized in The Book of Common Prayer 1662 and has remained largely unchanged ever since.