The offering of prayer late in the evening, by laity, religious orders or clergy, often called Compline, has sometimes been described as the ‘goodnight prayer of the Church’.  

It rounds off the day and prepares us for a quiet night.

As the psalmist wrote: I lie down in peace and take rest my rest for it is in God alone that I dwell unafraid.

Night Prayer derives its content from the wisdom of the centuries in Scripture and above all in the psalms, but also from contemporary Christian experience of God. It celebrates the awareness that each of us who tries to pray is a part of the human whole. So we are taken over the threshold from daytime, not in a mood of self-centered spirituality, but as representatives of humanity, acknowledging our creaturehood before God.

Here is the introduction (approach) to Night Prayer:

Approach Leader: The angels of God guard us through the night,
People: and quieten the powers of darkness.

Leader: The Spirit of God be our guide
People: to lead us to peace and to glory.

Leader: It is but lost labour that we haste to rise up early, and so late take rest, and eat the bread of anxiety. For those beloved of God are given gifts even while they sleep.

Leader: My brothers and sisters, our help is in the name of the eternal God
People: who is making the heavens and earth.

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples
of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and for ever.    Amen.

A New Zealand Prayer Book