Evening Prayers

Like so many others, the first prayer I can ever remember praying is the one which begins, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep..."  And like many others, it is my Mother whom I remember teaching me to pray this prayer.  My  evening prayers changed a lot in those years after learning that first evening prayer.  I suppose you might say I outgrew that prayer.  I started praying longer prayers, prayers that seemed more personal.  Maybe I even thought of them as being the prayers of a believer growing in faith.

 

Now some people tell me they do their evening praying in bed.  I have tried that from time to time, but usually find that sleep overtakes me before I get too deep into praying.  If I pray in the evening, the best place is not the place where sleep is so easy to find.  However, in these later years which some have labeled the senior years, I have found myself coming to a new appreciation for the simple evening prayers.  I often find myself praying one of those simple prayers as I enter into the time of sleep.  One remembered often begins with the words, ""Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep..."  ("The Divine Hours" by Phyllis Tickle. 

 

A recent find came in the book being read about Celtic spirituality.  It has a prayer that comes from prayers saints prayed back in the Middle Ages.  It has become an evening prayer for me as of late.  "I lie down this night with God, And God  will lie down with me,  I lie down this night with Christ, And Christ will lie down with me,  I lie down this night with Spirit, And the Spirit will lie down with me, God and Christ and the Spirit Be lying down with me."  I am beginning to wonder about those prayers I thought were too simple to pray.  Could be I was wrong.  Of course, it is not the first time.