Hope and Poetry (Ashgate 2010), Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year (Canterbury 2012), The Singing Bowl (Canterbury 2013) and Word in the Wilderness (Canterbury 2014).
Helen-Ann Hartley is the 7th Bishop of Waikato in the Diocese of Waikato and Taranaki, New Zealand. Prior to her consecration, Helen-Ann was Dean at the College of St John the Evangelist in Auckland, New Zealand. She was ordained deacon and priest in the Diocese of Oxford and served as Director of Biblical Studies at Ripon College Cuddesdon prior to her move to New Zealand in 2012.
Barbara Mosse is a writer and retired Anglican priest. She was a lecturer on the MA in Christian Spirituality at Sarum College, Salisbury. Earlier ministerial posts included some parish work, alongside chaplaincy experience in prison, university, community mental health and hospital. She is the author of The Treasures of Darkness (Canterbury 2003), Encircling the Christian Year (BRF 2012) and Welcoming the Way of the Cross (BRF 2013).
Mark Oakley is Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral. A former Chaplain to the Bishop of London and Rector of St Paul’s, Covent Garden, he is also the author of The Collage of God (2001) and various anthologies, including Readings for Funerals (2015), articles and reviews, usually in the areas of faith, poetry and literature. He is Visiting Lecturer in the department of Theology and Religious Studies at King’s College London.
Martyn Percy is the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, one of the University of Oxford’s largest colleges, as well as the Cathedral Church of the diocese of Oxford. From 2004 to 2014 he was Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon. Prior to that he was Director of the Lincoln Theological Institute and has also been Chaplain and Director of Studies at Christ’s College, Cambridge.
John Pritchard has recently retired as Bishop of Oxford. Prior to that he has been Bishop of Jarrow, Archdeacon of Canterbury and Warden of Cranmer Hall, Durham. His only ambition was to be a vicar, which he was in Taunton for eight happy years. He enjoys armchair sport, walking, reading, music, theatre and recovering.
Ben Quash has been Professor of Christianity and the Arts at King’s College London since 2007, and is Director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred at King’s (ASK). Prior to that he was Dean and Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. He runs a collaborative MA in Christianity and the Arts with the National Gallery in London, and is also Canon Theologian of both Coventry and Bradford Cathedrals.
John Sentamu practised Law both at the Bar and at the Bench in Uganda before he came to the UK in 1974. He was ordained priest in 1979, and was appointed Bishop for Stepney in 1996, Bishop for Birmingham in 2002 and Archbishop of York in 2005. He is Primate of England and Metropolitan, a member of the House of Lords and a Privy Councillor.
Angela Tilby is a Canon of Christ Church, Oxford and is Continuing Ministerial Development Adviser for the Diocese of Oxford. Prior to that she has been Vice-Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge and a senior producer at the BBC, where she made several acclaimed television programmes and series.
Lucy Winkett is Rector of St James’s Church, Piccadilly. She contributes regularly to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and is the author of Our Sound is our Wound (Continuum 2010). She combines parish ministry with chairing an educational trust and running an all-through Church of England Academy, including a project for children on the autistic spectrum. Until 2010, she was Canon Precentor of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Jeremy Worthen is a priest in the Church of England and is currently the Secretary for Ecumenical Relations and Theology at the Council for Christian Unity. He previously worked in theological education and has written on a range of subjects, including Jewish–Christian relations. His most recent book is Responding to God’s Call (Canterbury Press 2012).
About Reflections on the Psalms
Reflections on the Psalms is a companion publication to the highly successful annual series of Reflections for Daily Prayer; this book offers a series of short reflections on each of the Psalms, written by a varied team of popular writers, experienced ministers, biblical scholars and theologians, all of whom bring their own emphases, enthusiasms and approaches to biblical interpretation to bear.
Regular users of Morning Prayer and Time to Pray (from Common Worship: Daily Prayer) will benefit from the rich variety of traditions represented in these stimulating and accessible pieces.
Unlike Reflections for Daily Prayer this volume is not tied to the annual lectionary; rather it will form a perpetual companion for Morning and/or Evening Prayer, and will also be a good reference for preaching from the principal service Lectionary readings, which always include a psalm.
As such this book will be a valuable resource for personal or devotional use. Some readers may use it in tandem with Reflections for Daily Prayer; others may choose to use it in place of it for a while. Equally, the value of the book won’t be limited to people using the Morning Prayer Lectionary – it will be of use to many who never do, or who only want to use it on Sundays or as part of a non-Lectionary based pattern of prayer. Two possible patterns of reading the Psalms are suggested on pages 16–18.
Each reflection sits on a page with its corresponding Psalm refrain and prayer from the Common Worship Psalter.
Some of the longer psalms have been divided into shorter portions, each of which is given its own reflection (e.g. Psalm 18). The longest psalm, Psalm 119, is divided into eight parts, following the divisions found in Common Worship Daily Prayer.
The book of the Psalms – sometimes also called the Psalter – has been at the centre of Jewish and Christian worship for over 2000 years, though individual psalms have been used in worship for much longer even than that. Indeed one of the most inspirational features of the Psalter is that it has been in constant use as a prayer book for at least 2000 years, if not longer. When we pray the words of the Psalms, we join our words to the words of those millions of Jews and Christians who have gone before us and have used this collection as their own prayer book.
Our English word ‘psalm’ comes from the Greek word psalmos, which means a song sung to harp music. Our name for the Psalms then seems to reflect how they were prayed. The Hebrew name for the Psalter is Tehillim, which means literally ‘praises’ and appears to be more connected to the content of the Psalms than to how they were prayed.
Five major types of psalms
The Hebrew name for the Psalter may have been ‘praises’, but you do not have to read very far through the Psalms to realize that not all psalms are psalms of praise. Some psalms contain far more grief and anger than they do praise. The further you read, the clearer it becomes that there are different types of psalms in the Psalter, and being able to recognize what type of psalm you are reading can be very helpful in understanding it better. There are five major types of psalms, although, of course, not all psalms fit easily into one category or another.
• Hymns – Many of the
