We all need it and we all seek it -- at the close of the day, especially. Compline, the “Church’s bedtime service,” was designed to bring us the peace of God at nightfall. For a little over three years now, the choir of St. Paul’s, Oakland, has engaged in a ministry of peace to its Lake Merritt neighborhood by singing Compline on the fourth Sunday evening of the month.
Peace is almost palpable as people enter the candlelit brick church. Some of them know of the service from announcements in church and in the parish newsletter, but most learn of it from a sandwich board sign on the sidewalk. Adams Point is a walking neighborhood; residents on their way to work or heading back from a lakeside stroll, people who would stay away on a Sunday morning, feel comfortable at this thirty-minute service in the evening. A young couple likes the Gregorian chant that the sign promises; an older Roman Catholic man visiting his daughter up the street recalls the service sung by monks in his childhood.
Only a few tapers illuminate the interior; candelabra suffuse the altar with a golden glow. The choir files in and begins singing the versicles and psalms, some in Latin and some in English. After a few prayers sung by the choir and cantor, but before the conclusion of the service, a meditative silence settles over the congregation for about ten minutes, and the sense of God’s peace grows deeper.
The choir leaves and the congregants drift out, talking in hushed tones as they reach the entrance. Many return the next month for the music -- but particularly for the peace.
The service of Compline is sung at St. Paul’s, Oakland, at Montecito and Bay Place, on the fourth Sunday evening of every month at 8 p.m.
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By Carolyn S. Knapp
This article was published in the Pacific Church News, Fall 2005 Issue.