It’s wonderful to know that people have been using this space to share prayers that are especially meaningful to them. I’m a bit late to the party, but wanted to include a prayer/canticle that touches my heart, too:
O Gracious Light Phos hilaron
O gracious light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing your praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of Life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.
Scholars believe this was written in the second or third century C.E., making it one of the most ancient pieces of our worship. Phos Hilaron can be translated as “gracious light” or “gladdening light.” It is included in our service of Evening Prayer, and it was one of the first parts of any liturgy I learned to chant in seminary many years ago.
I can’t claim to pray Evening Prayer consistently, but I often try to stop at some point when daylight is fading and say (or hum!) this piece. It grounds me in gratitude for the rhythm of the hours. It articulates my love for Jesus and reminds me that God is present and active in whatever has happened—or not happened—on any given day.
Title: Interior of the Church of the Light; Date: 1999; Artist: Tadao Andō (b. 1941); Building: Church of the Light; Object/Function: Architecture; City/Town: Ibaraki; Country: Japan; Scripture: Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41; John 3:14-21; John 12:20-36; Matthew 4:12-23; 1 Peter 2:2-10; Romans 13:11-14. Notes: “Mr. Ando has shown an ability to suffuse rooms with light in surprising ways. One of his most famous projects is the Ibaraki Kasugaoka Church in Ibaraki, Japan, which is known as the Church of the Light because of the cruciform-shaped opening in the concrete wall behind the altar.” [from The New York Times, March 30, 2014.] — “Dwelling in a house is a search for the mind (kokoro) as the locus of god, just as one goes to church to search for god. An important role of the church is to enhance this sense of the spiritual. In a spiritual place, people find peace in their mind (kokoro), as in their homeland.” [ Jin Baek, Nothingness: Tadao Ando’s Christian Sacred Space. Routledge, 2009. ] — Tadao Ando was the recipient of the Pritzker Prize in Architecture in 1995. — Photo by Attila Bujdosó. Permalink: https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55848 (Use this link to refer back to this image.)
