In looking through the new A New Zealand Prayer Book He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa 2020 [NZPB2020] for what had changed since previous books with the same name, I looked at page 143, Prayers on Various Subjects. This is a most useful four-page index to prayers in the Prayer Book organised alphabetically under different topics.
In this new book, this index has a new introduction. The page numbers of this index, we are told, refer not to this current 2020 book but to previous books with the same name. In other words, people who have bought this book because they don’t own the previous book cannot use these pages (unless they refer to the web version’s “historical content section” – in which case they needn’t be using this printed book).
So, I thought, why didn’t the editors of NZPB2020 redo these four pages to index this new book? Sure, those pages are part of the agreed binding formularies of our Church (formularies having a complex process to be changed), but I’ve already shown that this new Prayer Book is not a binding together of formularies – there are formularies here, and there are resources which are not formularies. Even adding the new introduction on page 143 means that this formulary has been changed without going through the agreed process.
I soon discovered why these four pages have not been redone.
It takes about half a minute, with the book and the website open, to search for the prayer referred to. I was looking forward to having the Te Reo version as well as the English one. I regularly lead prayer in both languages – so being able to quickly find a prayer for a particular subject was going to be a big step forward for me.
Bereavement
590 Easter Eve A – this prayer, I discovered after half a minute, is not [correct me if I am wrong] in NZPB2020
Caring
635 Pentecost 23 B, C – this prayer is not [correct me if I am wrong] in NZPB2020
The Church
559 Christmas 2 B,C – this prayer is not [correct me if I am wrong] in NZPB2020
567 Epiphany 5 B – yes, this is now page 698
587 Good Friday A – “…. grant us to rejoice in the benefits of his passion…” Gone.
604 Day of Pentecost B – Gone:
Almighty God,
New Zealand Prayer Book – non 2020 editions page 604
you kindled this day the light of your Spirit
in the hearts of your faithful people;
may we by the same Spirit
have a right judgment in all things,
and evermore rejoice in your love and power;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour,
who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
This prayer dates from at least the Gregorian Sacramentary, and hence is an ecumenical, pre-Reformation gem which continues to be prayed across denominations. It was in the Sarum missal and the collect for the Day of Pentecost in all earlier Prayer Books (1549, 1552, 1559, 1662, 1928, 1989). It is prayed across the Anglican Communion from USA through the United Kingdom to South Africa and Australia… but this part of the agreed formularies of our Church is no longer in A New Zealand Prayer Book He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa 2020.
After about five minutes of trying to find where the prayers had moved, it was clear my attempt to find the prayers in NZPB2020 and create a new index was going to be fruitless.
This is the fifth post in a series on this A New Zealand Prayer Book He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa 2020.
The previous posts described:
1) how this book, in many ways, is maybe the book many might have hoped for in 1989,
2) how this book bears the same title as the 1989 book but has quite a different status,
3) began looking in detail at some of the changes in the book from previous books which bore the same title, and
4) showed how the new Prayer Book defied General Synod Te Hinota Whanuia.
This series continues with a specific example: how the option we have agreed to (formulary) has been omitted and how, following the rules of NZPB2020 means a community might never celebrate The Transfiguration on a Sunday.
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Kia ora Bosco for your continuing studies that keep us informed. I was shocked that this latest edition of nzpbhkmoa 2020 had those changes included ( as signalledl by you) and it certainly raised questions as to how it was permitted to be printed with these alterations – was there no PS?? & with the power to accept or reject, as required?And where did the permission come from for them actually to proceed with this printing?
Kia ora, Marjorie – I’m not sure what your PS refers to (“was there no PS??”). Ngā mihi nui! Blessings.