But if your spouse is not yet baptized, go into another room to pray, and then return to bed. History įrom the time of the early Church, the practice of seven fixed prayer times have been taught in Apostolic Tradition, Hippolytus instructed Christians to pray seven times a day 'on rising, at the lighting of the evening lamp, at bedtime, at midnight' and 'the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day, being hours associated with Christ's Passion.' With respect to midnight prayer and the ablutions preceding it, Hippolytus wrote: Īround midnight rise and wash your hands with water and pray. In Oriental Orthodox Christianity and Oriental Protestant Christianity, the office is prayed at 12 am, being known as Lilio in the Syriac and Indian traditions it is prayed facing the eastward direction of prayer by all members in these denominations, both clergy and laity, being one of the seven fixed prayer times. The phrase hora nocturna (night hour) may refer to the canonical hour of vigils or matins, but not to the individual nocturns into which vigils or matins may be divided. The Latin adjective nocturnus corresponds to English 'nocturnal' and is attached to many different nouns, such as nocturnae horae (the hours of the night), nocturna tempora (nocturnal times), which are not necessarily connected with religion and are unrelated to the subject of this article. The plural form, vigiliae (vigils, watches), also came into use. Originating in a prayer service celebrated by early Christians at night, the liturgical office of matins was originally in Latin called vigilia (vigil, watch). Matins was composed of one to three nocturns.

Ī nocturn consisted of psalms accompanied by antiphons and followed by readings, which were taken either from Scripture or from the Church Fathers or similar writings. In the liturgy of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, nocturns refer to the sections into which the canonical hour of matins was divided from the fourth or fifth century until after the Second Vatican Council. Nocturns ( Latin: nocturni or nocturna) is a Christian canonical hour said in the nighttime.

Confession nocturn