Eight people gathered in church at 7pm on Sunday for a service of Evening Prayer as the summer dusk gathered over Niantic.  

The Prayerbook liturgy included Old and New Testament readings, and familiar prayers. There were also collects, a creed and general confession closer to the traditional and poetic language of the 1662 Prayerbook, a text less modernized than that of our Sunday morning Eucharist services.

The service included the traditional evening canticle The Magnificat, also known as The Song of Mary, with its themes of divine mercy and lifting up of the lowly.

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Also recited was the Nunc Dimittis, known as the Song of Simeon, named after the old man who asked God to let him “depart in peace” after he had held the baby Jesus and he felt his life’s mission complete. The Nunc Dimittis has been sung or recited in services such as Vespers and Compline since the 4th Century.  

Those taking part found the service moving and restorative. Chris Cooper, who led the service and guided the small congregation through relatively unfamiliar pages of the Prayerbook, described it as “a transition from busyness of the day to a calmer time before nightfall”.

Everyone is welcome to the services on Sunday evenings during August.  

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For those who would like to attend a sung version of the service, Evensong, there will be several opportunities near Niantic in the months ahead.  

The Anglican Singers, whose President is our Organist and Choirmaster Kathy Cooper, will next be singing Choral Evensong at the Pequot Chapel (opposite Chapel Street on Montauk Avenue) in New London on September 13th. The celebrated choir will be at St John’s for our service of Eucharist for All Soul’s Day on November 1st.