Vespers
Let my prayer be incense before you; my uplifted hands an evening sacrifice
(Ps. 140:2).
The Divine Office celebrated in Choir is a reproduction “of the singing of the heavenly and blessed spirits, who form the glorious Church in Heaven. It is for this reason that the place in which monks, friars and canons gather to recite the Office has assumed the name of choir: it is to reproduce visibly the angelic orders and the choir of saints, who incessantly praise God’s majesty (cf. Isaiah 6:1-4; Revelation 5: 6-14)” (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, n. 35). The prayer of Vespers hearkens to “the true evening sacrifice that our Savior the Lord entrusted to the Apostles at supper on the evening when he instituted the sacred mysteries of the Church” (General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, 39).