A Prayer for Eventide

//e-ven-tide [ee-vuhn-tayd]
noun
evening//

I love that word. It has a beautiful sound, and gives a sense of the way evening, darkness, night, can come slowly and wash over the world. If you ever want to experience this, turn all the lights off before the sun starts to go down, and just watch the bookshelves, the corners, the faces of the people you live with and love, become shadows and silhouettes. All our electric lights deprive us of this singular experience.

But I digress.

Here is a lovely prayer for eventide. It's one that I encountered during my days at Notre Dame. As always, if the masculine "He" doesn't work for you, try substituting whatever name for God/the god-concept does work for you. This prayer is by John Cardinal Newman:


May he support us
all the day long
till the shades lengthen
and the evening comes
and the busy world is hushed
and the fever of life is over
and our work is done.
Then in his mercy
may he give us a safe lodging
and a holy rest
and peace at the last.

[P.S. I am updating this post on 10/3 to add an image of my prayer card for this prayer. I tried to scan it in with the original post, but my computer has been cranky this week, and I couldn't get the image to scan until today.]