The end of the day, put down on purpose instead of just stopping. This is the hour the Church has kept at sundown for sixteen hundred years, and the middle of it is Mary's own words. About eight minutes.
O God, come to my assistance.
O Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Quiet, for as long as you want it. Not an examination and nothing to write down — just the day, as it actually went.
And thenGlory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
TraditionalVisit, we beseech thee, O Lord, this house and family, and drive far from it all snares of the enemy; let thy holy angels dwell herein, who may keep us in peace, and may thy blessing be always upon us. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
It moves in one direction, and it is not the one you would expect from a prayer said when you are tired.
The psalm asks for something small and very practical — set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth — which is an evening thought if there ever was one, said by someone reviewing what came out of their mouth today.
Then the whole thing turns and the Magnificat takes over, and it is not about your day at all. It is about what God has done, told by someone who had just been handed more than she asked for. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. Whatever kind of day it was, you end up saying that.
Which is the design. The hour does not ask you to feel better about the day. It changes the subject.
Praying at fixed hours is older than the Church — the psalms themselves keep mentioning it, and evening and morning and at noon I will speak and declare is Psalm 54. Christians had a morning and an evening prayer by the fourth century at the latest; the Apostolic Constitutions assume it. Around 530 Benedict wrote the hours into his Rule, and after that the shape held.
What is worth knowing is how ordinary it stayed. Vespers was the hour laypeople actually went to — in much of Europe, for centuries, Sunday Vespers was a normal thing to attend, sung, in the evening, with everyone there. It is where a great deal of church music comes from, because composers wrote for the hour people showed up to.
Then it thinned out, and most Catholics now have never been to it. The words did not go anywhere. Compline follows it, later, right before sleep.