Perhaps the two most sacred times of each day to the medieval mind were dusk and dawn. Practically speaking, these were the two times when religous ceremonies could be celebrated (offering the least conflict to the farmers' and laborers' workday). But at the same time, the end of the day was the beginning of night, a time without light and potentially a time of danger and peril to both body and spirit. Correspondingly, the first light of morning becomes a time of thanksgiving that we have escaped what some English liturgies still call "every peril of the night"; we have not been killed, or robbed, or haunted by spirits, or driven into temptations of sin under cover of darkness. The morning songs tend to be those of thanksgiving; those of the evening, ones begging protection. It is no accident that some of the earliest hymns in Europe, including Christe qui lux es et dies, pray for nightly protection in the evening. Christe qui lux es et dies was one of the most popular evening hymns in the medieval Catholic church, and it also inspired a large number of English motets in the breakaway Anglican tradition.

The poetic text of Christe qui lux es et dies was probably not written by the eminent hymnist St. Ambrose himself, but it hews to his style quite closely; an early date of composition also follows from a literary reference to it in the year 532. Each verse of text is four lines, roughly following a Latin classical pattern of iambic tetrameter (four petic feet, short/long). Its content also breathes the spirit of Ambrosian hymnody, from its opening invoking Christ as "both light and day." It is He who, giving blessed light to human eyes, may drive away the shadows of night. The text proceeds, praying that He "defend us in this night" so that the powers of darkness may be banished, and we who have been paid for by His blood may be governed and defended against sin this night. The poem even references Christ's defense at the moment of eternal darkness (our death), and then concludes with a completely traditional blessing in the name of the Trinity. Over the centuries, millions of European Catholics may have been soothed at the end of the day by its strains.

© Timothy Dickey, Rovi