Customer Reviews

The Saint Helena Breviary: Personal Edition

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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.

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.

I guess I was a little disappointed in the St Helena Breviary. The Order of St. Helena is an order of women closely related to the Order of the Holy Cross for men. Back in the 70s the two orders produced the Monastic Breviary which I used for personal devotions. One of the things I liked about that breviary was that it included the Psalter within the services as it was read by the Orders in a two week cycle. It also included hymns, antiphons, and other enhancements to the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, the basis for the Monastic breviary.

That Breviary is now out of print, and needed to be updated. It was my hope that this new Breviary by the Sisters of St. Helena would be an improvement on the older one and in some ways it is. They have added a number of Biblical canticles as well as a number based on the writings of such mystics as Julian of Norwich. The Psalter has been revised to be less masculine and more inclusive. Many of the collects for the saints have been reworked to be more specific to the saint's hagiography.

My disappointment is that the two week reading of the Psalter is not included within the Service. Instead, they have printed the Psalter in the last half of the book much the way it is found in the BCP and in the back of the book they have included a table of readings for the seven week cycle next to the lectionary. While this gives three options to read the Psalms (lectionary, two weeks, and monthly), it is difficult to do the two week cycle because of the way one has to jump from Psalm to Psalm in the back of the book each day.

In short, what I was hoping for was to have the Psalms implanted in the Services for the Day than in the back. To have the Psalms in their canonical order I would simply use their excellent Psalter.

As is typical of most prayer books, they could have easily doubled or even tripled the number of ribbons, and I would have liked to have seen them different colors. That being said, the type is good (much better than the older Monastic Breviary)and pleasant to look at. The book is well bound and should give years of service.

From my points this Breviary has its good points and its bad points. For those who are looking for an expanded, inclusive BCP Daily Office it has much to recommend it, but for those of us seeking to replace our Monastic Breviary it leaves something to be desired. (It should be noted that this is the Personal Edition; there is also a "Monastic Version" which may be more in line with what I was looking for).