Night Prayer (Compline)

Te lucis ante términum — "Before the ending of the day" — is the ancient hymn of Compline, the Church's night prayer and the last of the canonical hours of the Divine Office. As darkness falls and sleep approaches, the Church turns to the Creator of the world and asks Him to be "our guard and keeper" through the night: to drive far off evil dreams and the phantoms of the dark, to tread down the ancient enemy, and to keep body and soul in peace until morning. The hymn is anonymous and very old, in use in the Roman Office at least by the seventh or eighth century.

The hour itself takes its name from the Latin completorium — "completion" — because it completes and seals the day. In the traditional Roman Breviary, Compline opens with a blessing and an examination of conscience, followed by the Confiteor, so that one does not sleep at enmity with God. Then come the night psalms — among them Psalm 90, "He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High" — the hymn Te lucis, a short reading, and the Gospel canticle of Simeon.

That canticle, the Nunc Dimittis, gives Compline its deepest note: "Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace" (Luke 2:29). For the Fathers of the Church saw in every night's sleep an image of death, and in every waking an image of the resurrection. To pray Compline is therefore to prepare the soul to rest in God — at peace with Him, watched over by Him, ready to meet Him should the night be one's last.

Compline — and with it the whole day — closes with one of the great Marian antiphons: the Salve Regina through most of the year, or the Alma Redemptoris Mater, Ave Regina Cælorum, or Regina Cæli in their seasons. So the Christian's last waking words are entrusted to Our Lady, that she may keep watch over the hours of the night.