{"id":2224,"date":"2026-06-04T17:43:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/categunn.com\/?p=2224"},"modified":"2026-06-04T17:43:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:43:23","slug":"evensong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/categunn.com\/?p=2224","title":{"rendered":"Evensong"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

This is an extended version of a talk I gave at Evensong in Earls Colne church on Whitsunday in lieu of a sermon. I didn\u2019t talk about the great themes of this festival, except to mention that we think of the apostles speaking in tongues at Pentecost so that they were understood by people from every nation and in a way, even the Church of England speaks in tongues \u2014 the different registers and languages of its services, each of which is valid. The Book of Common Prayer is often thought of as old-fashioned and not relevant to the modern world, but when it was first composed after the English Reformation it was ground-breaking, translating ancient Latin prayers into English so that they could be understood by all the congregation, as the Apsotles were understood by all those who listened to them.
But if the Book of Common Prayer, and the service of Evensong which was created as part of it, is no longer relevant, why do people still attend the service? We are fortunate that at St Andrew\u2019s church in Earls Colne, which is a village in the north of Essex, there is a dedicated choir ably led by the director and organist, Brett Johnson who, as well as singing at Sunday morning services, sing Evensong once a month. When I was a child, attending Evensong was a part of the weekly routine of Sundays, part of the pattern of my life. I would be beside my mother in the congregation while my father took the service and my brother was in the choir which, as was customary then, was men and boys only. I knew the words of the service off by heart, and can still recite the Nunc Dimittis. I pray it whenever I attend a funeral.
History of Evensong<\/strong>
The daily routine of saying Mattins and Evensong harks back to monastic traditions: St Benedict and the saying of the Opus Dei, literally the \u2018work of God\u2019. These daily prayers are also known as the \u2018Hours\u2019 and are the the daily services of petitions, psalms, intercessions and anthems said in monasteries; a form of them has been said every day for the past (nearly!) 1500 years There are seven of these \u2018Hours\u2019 during the day and one, Mattins, in the night. This pattern was inspired by two verses from Psalm 119: Seven times a day do I praise you and At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee. They are at the heart of the monastic life as laid out in the Rule of St Benedict, first written by Benedict for the Abbey of Monte Cassino which he established around the year 529; it was \u2018a monastic life centered around prayer, work, studies, and hospitality\u2019. Gathered at Evensong, the congregation and choir are part of that ancient tradition.
A while ago, I took a Mattins service on the theme \u2018Why Mattins\u2019 and concluded by quoting from an interview Diarmaid MacCulloch gave to Tim Adams in The Observer. MacCulloch explained why he still takes morning prayer one day each week in his local church: \u2018I like to do things that have been done over centuries by other people \u2014 and the practice of the liturgy is a very good example of that.\u2019 By doing something that has been done over centuries by other people \u2014 in this case by joining together in Evensong \u2014 allows us to join those people, no longer with us but whose voices still echo in our churches and whose prayers are still to be heard and maybe responded to.
Evensong itself was created by Thomas Cranmer in the sixteenth century for the Book of Common Prayer but he used parts of both Vespers and Compline, which are two of the monastic Hours. The pattern of prayers and psalms, canticles and anthems we recognise from Evensong is found in both Vespers and Compline: the Magnificat is used in Vespers and the Nunc Dimittis in Compline. Even the names we use for these familiar canticles retain the Latin of the original monastic services: Magnificat: anima mea Dominum [My soul magnifies the Lord] and Nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine [Now Lord, allow your servant to leave].
Evensong also gives us a Psalm, sung when there is a choir and said otherwise. Psalms were important to Cranmer when he originally ordered the daily services for the newly reformed Church of England, but the monastic practice of saying the whole Psalter of 150 psalms every week would not be possible for the laity so instead they are divided over thirty days to allow the whole psalter to be said over the course of a month by those who dutifully say Mattins and Evensong every day. Saying the psalms is an ancient tradition; they are accessible and prayerful verses that often express deeply felt emotions, fears and joys; St. Athanasius in his letter to Marcellinus claims that \u2018in the words of [the Book of Psalms] all human life is covered\u2019 and he recommends that \u2018whatever you seek, whether it be repentance and confession, or help in trouble \u2026 [or whether] you want to praise and thank and bless the Lord \u2026 the words are written down, and you can say them as your own\u2019. It seems a shame that the psalms are largely missing from the modern liturgy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer claimed that \u2018Whenever the psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure is lost to the Christian church\u2019.
Liturgy<\/strong>
The heart of the service of Evensong is the words of the service, the liturgy. An article in the Church Times in 2019 questioning the wisdom of abandoning traditional, set forms of service for more informal, evangelical or charismatic servies suggested that liturgy \u2018acts as an anchor of familiarity and universality. The words, often repeated, become a touchstone even for infrequent worshippers. They ensure accuracy and economy of language. They are a repository of scripture, a tool of instruction.\u2019 While he did not \u2018have an unqualified objection to Charismatic forms of worship\u2019 the author, writing under a pseudonym, questioned \u2018whether the forms of worship currently in vogue are robust enough to bear the burden of the tasks that they must perform: to encourage the faithful, comfort the distressed, rejoice with those who rejoice, beckon the wayward, console the penitent, help us to mourn the death of our Lord, and celebrate his resurrection\u2019. I would argue that the Church of England is broad enough to have room for both more informal services (as are being held now in Earls Colne) and the traditional Prayer Book services such as Evensong.
There is another argument for retaining old forms of service, especially for older people whose sight may not be so good any longer. If it\u2019s difficult to squint at the words of a printed service, then old familiar words can still be recited from memory. There is a comfort, as you grow older and the time in front of you is so much shorter than the time behind, in words which evoke memories of childhood, a simpler and maybe happier time. There is a special beauty to prayers learnt by heart through long of repetition: they are said from the heart.
I am reminded of lines from T.S. Eliot\u2019s Little Gidding, part of The Four Quartets:<\/p>\r\n

You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying<\/p>\r\n

That \u2018something more\u2019 is the intangible, the spiritual that grants access to something beyond the mundane, the everyday. Eliot also hints at a connection with those who have gone before, who have prayed in the same place, and often using the same words, so that as, listening to the angelic voices of the present choir, we also join those angelic choirs of the past.
Choral Evensong<\/strong>
That \u2018something more\u2019 is often associated with the beauty of the service, especially when that is sung. Choral evensong, especially in cathedrals, remains a popular service with increasing attendance numbers even while church attendance in general continues to decline as a 2022 Review of the Cathedral Music Landscape in the United Kingdom noted, adding \u2018 Many people love cathedral music for its transcendent beauty and numinous quality, whether or not they are religious active.\u2019 I came across that term numinous in other accounts of the popularity of Evensong; it suggests a revealing of the divine, granting access to something beyond the everyday, the mundane.
While for some, Evensong is an important part of their spiritual and devotional life, many people enjoy the singing of choral evensong for its own sake. It is interesting to note that Choral Evensong is broadcast twice a week on Radio 3 (Sunday afternoons repeated on Wednesdays and available on iPlayer \u2014 always worth listening to!). That is, it is broadcast on the Classical music station, not Radio 4 which broadcasts Sunday services and daily prayer. It is appreciated as a musical performance. The controller of Radio 3, Sam Jackson, was quoted in the Telegraph on 1st February as saying \u2018Evensong is terribly inclusive \u2026 You can find deep faith and meaning in an act of worship. Or you can simply enjoy the meditative quality of the music.\u2019
There are many, no doubt, who enjoy attending choral evensong, in a Cathedral or College chapel, who have no conscious interest in the religious aspect of the service; they may claim to be \u2018cultural Christians\u2019 as, apparently, even the Neo-atheist Richard Dawkins has, claiming he prefers to live in a Christian country. He also said he saw Christianity as a \u2018bulwark against Islam\u2019; at a time when far right extremists are stoking racial tensions while claiming themselves to be Christians, that is not an argument I wish to pursue here. My husband, who goes to church at Christmas and Easter as a big favour to me, would sometimes, when he was working in the City and if he had the chance, go to Evensong at St Paul\u2019s Cathedral. He says it was a calming experience, removed from the stresses of work, and even if he wouldn\u2019t consider that experience religious, it was one he appreciated and which probably did him some good. The point I want to make is this: if attending choral Evensong as a \u2018cultural Christian\u2019, enjoying the music, the architecture of the building and its atmosphere, has an unsought spiritual dimension, that is surely a good thing.
Cranmer may not have been interested in singing, or approved of cathedrals, but he bequeathed to us the jewel of all cathedral services: sung Evensong, the part of the Prayer book that is now \u2018most frequently appreciated in its proper context\u2019. People talk of \u2018mere rhetoric\u2019, but there is nothing mere about rhetoric: its power was recognised in the Middle Ages when it formed part of the University curriculum that led towards the \u2018Queen of the Sciences\u2019, theology. In our own day, we see that rhetoric as used on social media can be used and abused. The power of rhetoric \u2014 for spiritual rather than political ends \u2014 was something understood by Cranmer. Cranmer\u2019s prayer book was revised over the next century, its final revision coming after the restoration of the monarchy in 1662 (the date which gives us the short-hand name for the Book of Common Prayer) but it is his prose which remains, described by Diarmaid MacCulloch as \u2018prose which can be spoken generation on generation without seeming trite or tired \u2014 words now worn as smooth and strong as a pebble on a beach\u2019.
In attending choral Evensong, we are participating in a wonderfully English tradition \u2014 our choral tradition. The singing of elements of the liturgy, the psalms and canticles, versicles and responses, probably developed from the practice of chanting. Tom Coxhead, a choral conductor and organist, writing on the history of Choral Evensong suggests that this chanting \u2018reflects the ultimate root of religious music, beginning as merely intoned speech being used to imbue sacred texts with a solemn feeling\u2019. Singing is also enjoyable, both to listen to and to practise, but it can be more than superficial fun, allowing the expression of deep spiritual feeling. Choral evensong may seem old-fashioned and irrelevant, but a project to involve primary-school children in faith-based singing and choral worship suggests otherwise. As part of the project, children from a Staffordshire primary school attended an evensong workshop which included their singing Evensong at Lichfield Cathedral. They learnt to sing the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in Latin \u2014 and loved it! One child commented \u2018It was like God was singing through my voice\u2019.
Not long ago, I attended choral Eucharist at St Edmundsbury cathedral. I sat next to the mother of the head chorister, who is the daughter of friends in Colne Engaine and someone I\u2019ve known since she was little more than a baby. Her husband was brought up in the Anglican tradition but she wasn\u2019t; now the whole family regularly attends services. Having come for the music, they stayed and have become members of the wider cathedral family.
When I was first thinking about giving this talk, I thought I would speak about \u2018the beauty of holiness\u2019. I may not have even mentioned that, but I think it has been the underlying theme of all that I said. If you ever feel an upsurging of joy within you while listening to music beautifully sung, or feel great peace descending upon you while you participate in the harmonious cadences of well-composed prayer \u2014 both of which have were possible at Earls Colne on Whitsunday \u2014 then surely you have experienced the beauty of holiness. It is a spiritual experience.

Cate Gunn
____________________
References:
Monte Cassino: https:\/\/www.ewtnvatican.com\/articles\/montecassino-the-abbey-where-saint-benedict-of-nursia-lived-and-created-the-rule-of-st-benedict-2176 accessed 16.ix.2025
Diarmaid MacCulloch interview: \u2018Let\u2019s Talk about Sex\u2019, interview with MacCulloch by Tim Adams, The Observer: The New Review, 08.09.24, p.11
Tom Coxhead, \u2018A History of Choral Evensong: the birth of an English tradition\u2019 The Historian, [Historical Association], Summer 2023.
Letter of St. Athanasius to Marcellinus: Text available at https:\/\/www.livefatima.io\/letter-of-st-athanasius-archbishop-of-alexandria-to-marcellinus-concerning-the-psalms\/ accessed 18.ix.2025. This letter and Dietrich Bonhoeffer on psalms quoted by Victoria Johnson, \u2018Food for the Christian journey\u2019, Church Times, 12 September 2025, p. 23
Liturgy: https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2019\/3-may\/comment\/opinion\/liturgy-is-an-anchor-don-t-brush-it-aside
Little Gidding in T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets (London: Faber & Faber, 1944)
Sam Jackson \u2018Quotes of the Week\u2019 in Church Times, 6 Feb 2026
Prose of BCP: Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (London: Allen Lane, 2009), pp. 630-1
Children singing Evensong: Clive Price, \u2018Learning to like evensong\u2019 in Church Times, 12 September 2025, pp. 29-30
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