Tuesday — Evening Prayer
Lighten our darkness, we beseech you, O Lord; and by your great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of your only Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Illumina, quaesumus, Domine, tenebras nostras: et totius huius noctis insidias tu a nobis repelle propitius.
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One of the most enduring prayers in English, this evening collect asks God to scatter the dark and guard us through the night. Cranmer drew it from the closing prayer of medieval Compline, which itself descends from a Latin oration preserved in the Gelasian Sacramentary, and it has closed Evening Prayer in every English Prayer Book since 1549.