The Saint Helena Psalter: A New Version of the Psalms in Expansive Language Hardcover – January 1, 2000

The strength of the St. Helena psalter is that it's an inclusive revision of the widely-admired translation of the psalms in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. That has been the "gold standard" for many years for psalm translations designed for liturgical use. The inclusive psalters in the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship (1992) and Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2005) likewise are based on the 1979 BCP. The Order of St. Helena developed this revision through their daily practice of monastic prayer. It would be ideal for anyone who wants to incorporate the psalms into their discipline of daily prayer except that the book lacks a lectionary or any other materials (canticles, prayers, etc.) that would allow the reader to pray the Daily Office. It is a mystery to me that while Church Publishing Incorporated has already published excellent resources for an inclusive Daily Office--this psalter, plus alternative canticles and other texts in "Enriching Our Worship"--it has declined to put this all together into one inclusive office book with attractive layout and binding. I think there would be a sizable ecumenical market for such a resource. The closest I've been able to find to a usable inclusive office are "Book of Common Worship Daily Prayer" (Westminster John Knox Press, 1995) and "Work of God: Benedictine Prayer" (Liturgical Press, 1994). The latter is what I now use for daily prayer. I wish Church Publishing would get into the act.

I also purchased the Breviary by St Helena which includes the Psalter, but I thought having the Psalter alone would helpful. It's fairly small, but the text is of good size, it even comes with one ribbon. The language is updated and fresh just as in their Breviary edition (which incidently is simply the BEST Breviary I have come across).My only problem with this Psalter that is not present with the Breviary (because the Breviary is larger and thicker) is the pages are fairly thick, and the binding doesn't give so it doesn't lay flat like their Breviary does, you have to really hold it pretty tightly or it will flop closed. I have it saved in my library and have opted to just read the Psalter in the big Breviary of SH.

I absolutely appreciate the work of the Sisters. Great job!!

Purchased as a gift and this book was well received. Thank you.

The Sisters of St Helena are a monastic order in the Episcopal Church. Every day they pray the four-fold office: Morning; Mid-day; Evening; and Night. In the course of those services, they read the entire book of Psalms in a two week cycle.This is the form of the Psalms they have developed for their use. Based on that if the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (BCP), it has been revised by the Sisters to be more inclusive and less masculine than the BCP.They have done an excellent job of this. It is more than a substitution of the word "God" for "He." Because they read the Psalms out loud in their worship, the Sisters took care to make sure that the Psalms sounded good while remaining true to the original intent. Thus they read very smoothlyThe book is fairly small which makes it easy to carry for those who want to "pray the Psalms" throughout the day. The one shortcoming is that the book is tightly bound and thus prone to close on its own, a slight irritant.For those who are not automatically put off by inclusive language, this Psalter is in many ways superior to that found in the BCP.

Sometimes those who attempt to revise liturgical texts into inclusive language (language that eliminates unnecessary references to men, when there's no reason to specify a sex) approach the task too lightly and just blithely change all references to "Lord" to "God" and think they've inclusivized the text satisfactorily. The result in those cases is that the text pounds the reader (and the praying congregation) in the head with continual reminders that THIS IS INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE.Much better are efforts like this one, The Saint Helena Psalter. The Order of Saint Helena is a community of Episcopal women religious who pray the psalter in its entirety every two weeks, reciting or chanting psalms four times a day in several houses around the country. A committee of OSH sisters revised the 1979 Book of Common Prayer psalter over a long period of time, praying the resulting texts and studying them for further revision. What went into this edition of the psalms is not only an eye for inclusive language but also an ear for how texts read, how they work when chanted, and how they express the words of the original Hebrew texts. The result feels not at all radical but thoughtful, poetic, and faithful to the original. It is a work done lovingly, over plenty of time, and with scholarship and prayer. This psalter forms the basis for the OSH's superb new Saint Helena Breviary, soon to arrive in its personal edition and available from the monastery in a monastic edition with chant. My only minor quibble is with the very, very tight binding of this psalter...extremely durable but tiring to hold open. You'll want to spend some time carefully massaging it to get it to flatten out somewhat. A larger-type edition with lay-flat binding (wire-O binding would be great) would be very useful. But this is not enough of a quibble to deduct a star. Thank you, OSH, for this valuable contribution to the praying of the Divine Office.