Books

 

I took this photo last Sunday and forgot to upload it from my phone. It is the bookshelf behind the organ bench and on it are stored books from yesteryear.

The Church of England managed with the Book of Common Prayer for many years then, at some point, somebody started to update the liturgy. By the time I was a chorister in 1968, Series II communion was pretty well established and a few years later Series III came out. These were again replaced by the Alternative Service Book (ASB) in 1980 a complete waste of time IMHO. Many churches invested cash in buying the volume which was obviously wasted.

Roll on and we now have the dreaded Common Worship of 2000. A more pathetic publication it would be difficult to imagine. Using it for communion services requires one to turn back and forth depending upon which Eucharistic prayer is used: to be fair, once one is used to the cue for the Sanctus one need not bother to follow the prayer, especially as various interjections and acclamations are seldom sung. I do dislike the many rubrics, symbols and icons which are meant to assist navigation of the book.

The line I REALLY hate is "that we may do justly". 'Do'? Who decided this? "That we may act justly" I suppose it means. See here.

The photo above shows the many volumes which are no longer in use, such as hymn books. Many places now use Hymns Old & New in which the harmonies and arrangements are of varying quality and the language has also been changed.

Ah, progress.