Compline, and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament

1. Compline

It sometimes happens that the faithful assist at Compline. To satisfy their piety, we will here give an explanation of it.

Compline honors the burial of Our Saviour. We recite p. 119this office close to the sacred tomb. Our heart will find there the Blessed Virgin, St. John, Magdalen, and the holy women.

The Lesson.—The religious of St. Benedict gathered after Vespers to hear reading from the Holy Scriptures and to recite certain psalms; then they went to their rest. This was the origin of Compline. The Church soon introduced these prayers into her liturgy. The lesson which begins this office recalls the ancient reading of the Scriptures by the monks.

The Confiteor.—Compline, the last office of the day, said at the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, naturally brings to the mind the wholesome thought of death. In a few moments slumber will close our eyes, an image of that other sleep which soon also will close them and for ever. It seems very wise in the Church to precede this office by the recitation of the Confiteor, and to end it with the Credo, so that if it should be that we should pass from the arms of sleep into those of death, we might die in faith and repentance. It is good to say the Confiteor then with sentiments of the keenest sorrow, as if about to appear before the Sovereign Judge.

The Psalms.—By their number the psalms of Compline recall the four last things. The words of the first psalm are perfectly suitable to the burial of Jesus Christ; the Church says them on Holy Saturday. Already we see in them the light of the resurrection.

“When I called upon Him, the God of my justice heard me: when I was in distress, Thou didst enlarge me.”

The second psalm is composed of the first six verses of the thirtieth psalm, said on the cross by the dying Christ. The Church has made it the prayer of the Saviour in the tomb.

At the end of the day, the last it may be of our life, from the tomb in which sin has laid us, let us unite ourselves to Our Lord, and say with Him: “In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded: deliver me in Thy justice.”

The third psalm shows the reason for this confidence of the Just One in the midst of the darkness of the tomb, and for that of the just man in the darkness of the night: “He that dwelleth in the help of the Most High, shall abide in the protection of the God of heaven. He shall say unto the Lord: Thou art my upholder and my refuge: my God, in Him will I trust.”

We have not forgotten that in olden times, to honor the mysteries of the birth and agony of the Saviour, the faithful came to pass several hours of the night at the foot of the altar. The last psalm of Compline was an invitation to the night prayer, like a formula of this pious appointment. These holy habits have disappeared.

But on the mountain, in the desert, in solitude, there are still angels of the nocturnal prayer; they are our ambassadors before Jesus Christ. To this concert of praise which rises from the earth, the angels add theirs; when all is silent they praise their God and ours.

Let us say with the Church:

“Behold now, bless ye the Lord: all ye servants of the Lord.”

“Who stand in the house of the Lord: in the courts of the house of our God.”

“Lift up your hands by night to the holy places, and bless the Lord.”

“May the Lord of Sion bless thee: Who hath made heaven and earth.”

The anthem sums up in a cry of distress all the prayers of the psalms of Compline: “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, and graciously hear my prayer.”

The Chant of In Manus Tuas.—After the Little Chapter there takes place between the faithful a tender colloquy, which it suffices to know to taste all its sweetness and touching simplicity. It is the prayer of a child to its father; a voice pure and young thus begins it: “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”

The faithful answer: “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”

The choir: “Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, the God of truth.”

The faithful: “I commend my spirit.”

The choir: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.”

This doxology is the chant of joy; but the coming of night, the dangers which it brings with it, cast upon the Christian’s soul a certain melancholy, and instead of finishing the Gloria Patri, he pauses to confide himself to the mercy of God: “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”

The choir: “Keep us, O Lord, as the apple of an eye.”

The faithful: “Protect us under the shadow of Thy wings.”

What could be more touching than this prayer? The Christian, alarmed by the deceits of the devil, is he not like a little child who seeks in the arms of his father an assured refuge? This Father so good, Whom he p. 121loves, leaves him but one desire: to see Him face to face in the fatherland of heaven. The chant of the Nunc Dimittis translates the burning ardor of the Christian soul.

The Last Chant to Mary.—The anthems of which we have spoken, and which ordinarily end Vespers, are said at the close of Compline.

To Mary is sung the last chant of the office, Mary the refuge of Christians in their last hour. The Blessed Virgin is called the Star of the morning; it is she who has guided our uncertain steps in the dawn of our life; she has warmed our young hearts by the pious practices of her worship; she has pointed out the rocks under the feet of her child. For all these blessings receive our gratitude, O tender Mother. But thou wilt be to thy children still more the star of the morning in that great day of eternity which will shine after the darkness of the tomb. We come to ask thee to be favorable to us then; in the midst of the fears of our last hour, in the passage from time to eternity, appear to our dying eyes like the morning star, harbinger of a beautiful day; like the star of the sea, messenger of a happy voyage.

2. The Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament

Following the sorrows of Calvary and the humiliation of the tomb, Jesus Christ received the adoration of the angels and the saints.

For the Christian, a traveller here below, after the weariness of the way, will come the sweetness of home; after the labors of the day, the reward of his Father. At the close of the day, the faithful image of our short existence, Benediction repeats all these things to us by an exquisite symbolism.

In the Isle of Patmos, whither persecution had sent him, St. John had a vision. Before his wondering eyes were unfolded all the splendors of the heavenly Jerusalem. In the midst of a dazzling light he saw “a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and tribes. And they all bore on their foreheads a mysterious sign; they were clothed in white robes, and carried palms in their hands. In the sight of the throne and the Lamb that was slain, they fell upon their faces, and adored God. And another angel came and stood before the altar, having a golden censer, and there was given him much incense, and it ascended up before God.” At the same time celestial chants fell upon the ear of the apostle. The multitude of the saints repeated: “Amen. Benediction, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen.”

St. John saw also an altar of gold, and under the altar the souls of those who had shed their blood for Jesus Christ. “On the altar were candlesticks, and in the midst one like to the Son of man; clothed in a garment down to His feet, girt around with a golden girdle. His head and hair were white as snow, and His face was as the sun shineth in his power. His feet were like unto fine brass as in a burning furnace; His voice was like the sound of many waters; His eyes like flames of fire. In His hand were seven stars, and from His mouth came out a sharp two-edged sword.” (Apoc. i.-viii.)

After this marvellous account, we ask if this was a p. 122vision stolen from heaven or borrowed from the earth. What happens in our churches that has not received from the earliest times the impress of the glories of heaven? Are these not the same wonders, above all at the hour of Benediction? A few candles sufficed for the celebration of Vespers and Compline, but now behold they sparkle everywhere, and their light plunges us in waves of a mysterious and heavenly brilliancy. The mosaics and the marbles of the sanctuary recall the gold and white stones which form the walls of the city of God. (Tob. xii. 22.) Already we are on the point of crying out with the apostle: “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her spouse.” (Apoc. xxi. 2.)

Before the altar, as in heaven, a great multitude is prostrated; all are overwhelmed: they are truly of all ranks and all nations; the rich is beside the poor, the learned elbow the ignorant. All adore the Lamb that was slain. In this crowd the majority wear the white robe which is worn at the celestial wedding-feast; the purest wool, the spotless snow, the most brilliant sun could not give us an idea of the white splendor of a soul adorned with grace. These faithful disciples also hold a palm in their hands, the palm of martyrdom of which the fathers of the Church speak: concupiscence is its fire, our passions are the executioners, mortification is the sword.

In the temple, as in heaven, sacred chants arise, chants of glory also, of gratitude and of love: The organ recalls to us that “voice like the sound of many waters.” (Apoc. xiv. 12.) And to fill the office of the angels, we see children clothed in white; the smoke of their censers envelops in a mysterious veil the throne of the God of the Eucharist.

The candlesticks meet our eyes, and in the midst of the candlesticks, upon His throne of love, the Son of man, as He was seen by the beloved apostle. Rend yourselves, O eucharistic veils; let us see the God of our altars clothed in the splendors of His glory! Let us kiss His sacred feet from which pour torrents of light! Let us contemplate His divine face, more splendid than thousands of suns; that hand so merciful and always open, where are shining seven stars, that is to say, the seven sacraments which He gives to relieve our miseries! Let us hear that penetrating voice which called the world out of nothing. Let us bathe in that stream of living water which rises at the altar in the Heart of Jesus, and gives life to souls.

At the sight of the marvels of which he was the witness in heaven, the beloved apostle, he who had leaned his head familiarly on the breast of Jesus Christ, and received the last legacy of His tenderness, fell prostrate, filled with holy fear. The priest, who, like St. John, has received more especially Mary for his mother; the priest, within whose breast in the morning Jesus has lain, see him also filled with saintly fear, falling on his knees as soon as he approaches his Master, and, after the example of the adoring angels, veiling his face.

This veil is called a scarf. The scarf is a reminder of that drapery which the first Christians took, at the hour of prayer, to cover their hands and shoulders, in token of supplication. The ancients in the Apocalypse wore these draperies, and they were white in color.

Having incensed the Blessed Sacrament three times, in honor of the adorable Trinity, the priest raises his voice in prayer.

In the midst of this crowd humbly kneeling, what should be his position? He is standing. This must not surprise us: we are in heaven; the priest visibly represents Jesus Christ, and the first martyr saw Jesus Christ in heaven “standing praying to His Father.” (Acts vii. 55.)

Let us say with St. Nilus: “Henceforth let us enter into the church with as much respect as if we were entering into heaven, and there let our thoughts and our words have nothing in them of earth.”

Let us take for our model St. Vincent of Paul. Seeing the humble and modest posture which he assumed at the altar, one would have said that, transported into heaven, he saw with his bodily eyes the adorable person of Jesus Christ. Or indeed St. Alphonsus Liguori, whose faith was so vividly penetrated at the foot of the altar with the presence of the King of angels, that more than once he suddenly arose, held out his arms to the tabernacle, and cried out: “Behold, how beautiful He is! Love Him with all your hearts.”

The Ostensorium, in which the sacred host is placed, has the form of a sun, because Jesus Christ is a sun; His divine rays enlighten minds and warm hearts. If we are blind to the faith, let us cry to Him with confidence: “Master, grant that I may see.” If the cold of indifference has frozen our heart, let us beg Him to give us love.