Finding a Psalm Book for Prayer
A review of my favorite Psalm books
For at least a decade, I’ve been praying the Psalms. I intended to make a daily Psalm commitment for years, but I only managed to pray them haphazardly when I felt like it. I tried many different Psalm versions along the way but had no real method to my praying. Joining a formation process for a “new monastic” community that follows a rhythm or “rule” of life helped me bake Psalms into my daily prayer menu.
Rather than read them aloud or silently, I chant them. I do it softly in my basement, usually before other beings in the house awake. My chanting is part of my personal practice. It’s nothing special, and I won’t be leading Psalm-chanting anytime soon. I follow a basic major step up and down that I learned years ago from Cynthia Bourgeault’s incredibly helpful Chanting the Psalms book and accompanying CD. The simple act of vocally singing the Psalms along one or two notes has meant a great deal to me. The verses mirror my humanity back to me and the tone energizes me—I can feel the vocal hum wake up energy centers in my body like a Christian version of mild yoga. If I happen to miss a day of “Lauds”(morning prayer) or “Compline” (night prayer), my day seems incomplete without them.
Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash
Over the past several weeks, I worked on a project that sent me sleuthing through my Psalm books, checking translations against one another for prayerful purposes. For people seeking to nurture a daily office practice through prayer books, here are brief reviews of my preferred options:
People’s Companion to the Breviary: This is my hands down favorite prayer book (thanks, Kerry, for recommending it so many years ago!). It’s a four-week Psalm cycle of three offices—morning, midday, and evening—put out by Indiana Carmelites in thoughtful, inclusive language. They meet the inclusive language moment by directly addressing God: “His love endures forever” in Psalm 118 becomes “Your love endures forever.” Readings include mystics, saints, and prophets of the church, such as Julian of Norwich and Francisco de Asuna, alongside Dorothy Day, Caryll Houselander, and Karl Rahner. It’s just marvelously done.
Benedictine Daily Prayer: This is a traditional monastic prayer book created with exquisite care by the monks at St John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. It contains a psalter for the full seven daily offices, from early vigils to night compline. With daily Scripture readings for vigils and liturgical seasons, it’s the full-spectrum Benedictine prayer book. In my opinion, this prayer book is near impossible to take on for people living lives with kids, spouses, and jobs—and yet it’s fun to have it around to dip into occasionally. On a private retreat, I tried to pray the seven offices alongside a traditional monastic day, getting up at 3:30 am to pray vigils every day. But then I just fell asleep at 8 am after morning prayer. False ideals of spiritual heroism collided with my actual life—a good lesson to learn!
Lauds and Vespers, from Camaldolese monks: This book, put together by the monks of New Camaldoli in Big Sur, CA, supported me through the longest days of COVID. Morning and evening prayer are notated with gorgeous music. It’s difficult to sing for beginners and requires the ability to read music. The COVID blur of days must have compelled me to apply myself to a challenging project—instead of making kombucha or sourdough bread, I downloaded a free keyboard app on my phone and learned basic music reading to sing the chants. These days, if I try to pray with this book, I spend more time than I can afford fiddling with getting the notes right. I inevitably give up and return to the far simpler step-up and step-down chant tone. It’s a special book and a beautiful resource for the right person, community, and time.
Book of Common Prayer Psalter: The Episcopal/Anglican Book of Common Prayer contains a complete psalter for use in prayer, including helpful asterisks to aid in chanting for when the musical step should be. I think it’s helpful to have around, but I confess that I don’t love it. The Psalm translation from 1979 contains heavy use of masculine and kingly language that I find removes the sense of intimate immediacy of prayer. Also, I don’t need all the public worship collects and litanies at hand for personal daily prayer.
Shorter Christian Prayer: The Catholic Church in the United States created this short prayer book as a distillation of their four-volume, “Liturgy of the Hours,” which prays all the offices. It contains morning and evening prayer for a four-week Psalter, with similarly formal, masculine, and hierarchical/kingly language at the Book of Common Prayer. What this version has going for it that the Book of Common Prayer does not quite have, in my opinion, is that it’s explicitly created for morning and daily office prayer and it’s so pocket-friendly, perfect to tuck in a bag on a trip.
Norman Fischer, Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms: There are numerous translations of Psalms out there, but I’m an enthusiastic fan of this one for prayer. Fischer is a Zen poet and priest with Jewish roots. He spent a week at the Gethsemani Trappist monastery in Kentucky and became inspired to render his own versions of the Psalms. The result is inspired. Fischer creates Psalms that retain the Hebrew-specific references and context—something contemporary renderings often fail to do, thus severing the Psalms from their Jewish roots—and yet distill the essence of the originals in a highly creative way. “His love endures forever” in Psalm 118 becomes “For your kindness pierces time through.” Somewhat provocatively, Fischer often translates the Psalms heralding the “Name” of God into the “Nameless” dimension of God, inviting the reader to step further into mystery rather than knowing. It’s probably not for everyone, but I find it very stirring. Psalm 34’s “Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord / let us exalt his Name forever ” is now “Join me—let’s enlarge God / Let’s shout and dance the nameless together.” Sign me up.
The Book of Psalms, by Robert Alter: Admittedly, I don’t really use this one for prayer, but I like to read it here and there because I’m a devoted fan of Robert Alter’s faithful translations of Hebrew. Alter’s translation is the perfect antidote to Psalm interpretations that wax universal at the expense of the concrete. He pays minute attention to the Hebrew language, poetry, and context, building an appreciation for the Psalms’ universal message through cultural and religious specificity.
Happy Psalm-praying! As always, I love to hear from you.
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I love this chanting the Psalms! Just did a few and will include this with my daily sit. :) thanks!
Thank you for this thoughtful description of different versions of the psalms. I’m really interested in the People’s Breviary and I see that it comes in two volumes. Would you recommend starting with the first one? I can’t afford both at once.