Monastic Daily Prayers

books:

	• The Saint Helena Breviary: Personal Edition Order of St Helena Church Publishing, 2006 - 616 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

Monastic Daily Prayers

I should qualify my review by saying that I regularly go to retreats at the Convent of St. Helena in Augusta, so I have an image in my head of the service as I use this book. I also have a slightly different edition, the monastic edition.

The Order of St. Helena is a religious order of women associated with the Episcopal Church, formed in 1945. They have three houses, one in Vails Gate, New York, one in New York City, and one in Augusta, Georgia. They have from their founding been a progressive order--as early as 1977 three of the sisters were ordained as priests.

This book grows out of their long interest in inclusive language. They have previously published The Saint Helena Psalter, based on the translation of the Psalms in the Book of Common Prayer but with masculine pronouns and nouns removed as much as possible. It is typical of the way they weave together old and new that they chant most of their services using traditional gregorian chants but have modernized the language.

This book gives all the material for the four prayer services done each day at the convents: matins, diurnum, vespers, and compline. The services follow a cycle that goes through all the psalms every two weeks. In addition to the psalms there are antiphons, hymns, canticles, collects and readings according to the day, the season, and the feast. There is a lot of new material included in this book that is not in the Book of Common Prayer, for example, over 40 new canticles.

This book is valuable to those who wish to incorporate the monastic worship tradition into their own personal worship. But more than that, it is a tremendous source of ideas and resources for worship for anyone interested in emphasizing God's love and mercy and de-emphasizing masculine language and imagery.

for more information click here

Beautiful!

This is a wonderful work, beautifully done. Anyone who wants to do daily prayer but is put off by the exclusive language of the Book of Common Prayer will be grateful for this fine work. It stays very close to the Prayer Book, but also enriches with additional words, such as from Julian of Norwich.