A while back, Fr. Paul, thinking in the depths of the
Lune Valley, alerted the Blogosphere to the fact that Amazon were flogging copies of the
Divine Office at knock-down prices. In case anyone is unclear, the
Divine Office is not a local administrative enclave of the Holy See: it is the official Prayer of the Church. Also known as the
Liturgy of the Hours, or the
Breviary, it is compulsory for priests and religious to pray it daily (though some Religious Orders have their own versions of it) and many lay people pray some, or all, of it.
I have to admit that my first thought on reading Fr. Paul's post was entirely cynical: something along the lines of,
Oho... so maybe they are going to do a revamp on the translations of the Office, and they're ditching the old copies before it becomes widely known...My second thought involved checking out the Amazon website with debit card to hand. Fr. Paul had said that the volumes were being sold at £35 each. Not most people's idea of a bargain, I grant you. However, the books usually retail at £50... That's $98.3 dollars for my transatlantic buddies... and € 73.60 for my European friends (currency according to today's exchange rate.)
Now you might not think that £50 is too much to pay for a book. But, the complete Office actually has three volumes. And it is not £50 for the whole set, but £50
per volume... If you are obliged to say the Office because of your vocation, you cannot "get by" with only one volume, you have to have all three...
Even so, £150 for the basis of your spiritual life, for the rest of your life, doesn't seem too bad, does it? I mean, it's not as if you need to buy a new copy every year...
...Now, normally, I'd agree. Some things are worth spending money on. You get what you pay for, and good quality prayer books which will last a lifetime definitely fall into this category.
Unfortunately...
...in English-speaking countries, there is this little group called ICEL, and ICEL believe that it is vitally important that they defend the copyright on their (up to now) appallingly translated prayers. ICEL only give permission to one publisher (as far as I have been able to ascertain) to print the Office in England and Wales: HarperCollins have the monopoly.
Monopolies have even less reason to produce goods of a reasonable quality. I was fortunate to have been given my first Breviary shortly after I returned to the Church (from an anonymous donor) and now, as I've taken vows, praying the whole Office daily is part of my rule of life. I keep the current volume of my Breviary in a special leather case which zips up. I am careful to treat the Breviary well: it is mostly Sacred Scripture, after all. However, the binding of the volumes is of such poor quality that I had to have one volume rebound after about two years, and I've been patching up the others with sellotape. Matters became critical when pages began fluttering to the ground every time I opened the book to pray...
...and then Amazon made its offer. Unusually, I had enough money spare to buy all three volumes, partly because one of the Amazon partners was offering the completely new volumes at an even lower price: I couldn't be certain that the prices would remain low, so buying them at intervals seemed to be a bad idea.
My old copy was a 1991 reprint of the 1974 version. The General Calendar has changed considerably, and there are lots of fascinating saints who have been added. Up until now, I've observed their feasts using the Common Offices (ie. Martyrs, Pastors, Virgins and so on) and I noticed that, in the advertising blurb, the publishers stated that the new 2006 reprint had an updated Calendar...
I was sure that at least some of the newer saints would have been included, and eagerly awaited delivery of the prayer books. Alas, only the dates of movable feasts have been updated: and the recent decision of the Bishops to move certain Holydays to the nearest Sunday means that these new calendars are now obsolete (
Hehey! Now we know why the price has been slashed!!)
As well as not bothering to update the Proper of Saints, or even the General Calendar given in the front of the volumes, they haven't bothered to improve on the quality of the paper used. As you can see in the photographs, the paper is so thin that you can actually read the text on the other side of the page...
In all of this I take comfort from the fact that ICEL are upholding standards and not letting just
anybody publish the Sacred Liturgy of the Church...
It would seem that Patter Noster has resurrected his old blog just in time to tell us that he's been accepted to study for the Priesthood in Rome.
A while back, Fr. Paul, thinking in the depths of the Lune Valley, alerted the Blogosphere to the fact that Amazon were flogging copies of the Divine Office at knock-down prices. In case anyone is unclear, the Divine Office is not a local administrative enclave of the Holy See: it is the official Prayer of the Church. Also known as the Liturgy of the Hours, or the Breviary, it is compulsory for priests and religious to pray it daily (though some Religious Orders have their own versions of it) and many lay people pray some, or all, of it.
Monopolies have even less reason to produce goods of a reasonable quality. I was fortunate to have been given my first Breviary shortly after I returned to the Church (from an anonymous donor) and now, as I've taken vows, praying the whole Office daily is part of my rule of life. I keep the current volume of my Breviary in a special leather case which zips up. I am careful to treat the Breviary well: it is mostly Sacred Scripture, after all. However, the binding of the volumes is of such poor quality that I had to have one volume rebound after about two years, and I've been patching up the others with sellotape. Matters became critical when pages began fluttering to the ground every time I opened the book to pray...
...and then Amazon made its offer. Unusually, I had enough money spare to buy all three volumes, partly because one of the Amazon partners was offering the completely new volumes at an even lower price: I couldn't be certain that the prices would remain low, so buying them at intervals seemed to be a bad idea.
A warm welcome to Cate, who started her own blog, Caeli et Terrae fairly recently. She took me up on a blanket tag I put out on the 4 x 2 meme (though her response isn't up yet!)
...I've heard it with my own ears! My cat actually snores in his sleep...
We didn't have a Corpus Christi Classical Rite Mass at Blackfen, on account of the Parish Priest abandoning us in favour of the Isle of Wight Latin Mass Society (heheheh... only kidding...)
It's a while since I posted any proper jokes. A friend sent me this by email, and I thought I'd share (it's an old one, but they're the best...)
The Holy Father's General Audience today (June 6th) was nearly disrupted when a man jumped the barricades and attempted to get into the Popemobile.
...and so I need an early night. I went to the evening Mass for St. Philomena (or, rather, I attempted to...) and got rather caught up in traffic. Luckily the return journey was easier than the outward one. More details tomorrow...
People do sneer at the number of shops around Lourdes which sell religious objects, and at first sight it can be a bit daunting: the first time I came I went into sensory overload with all those rosaries! However, the atmosphere is just phenomenal.
There's no sense of cut-throat competitiveness. And the prices are so very reasonable... in no way could you say that the hordes of pilgrims are being fleeced. There is also a sense of fair-play: the traffic close to the Domaine is one-way, but the direction of traffic is changed every two weeks (it changed the Friday we were there.)
And everyone is so friendly and good-humoured. I had a conversation with one shopkeeper who had seen me walking up in the town earlier in the morning, and I discussed the merits of St. Philomena with another. It's fascinating to watch the shopkeepers (and café waiters) look at a pilgrim and decide which language to start talking in. They're nearly always right.
I can't wait to go back...
...in case you were wondering about the odd temperature combination... the children had the ice cream. I had the hot chocolate!
It was interesting to note the different treatment meted out to the Club Class and the Euro Traveller passengers on British Airways. One thing I hadn't realised was that the division between the two is movable, so if there aren't many people prepared to pay the extra £70 (each way), then the remaining seats aren't left empty (well, you can't have the plebs mixing with the rich people!)
Back in February (loooong time ago) Ashley started a blog from her hospital bed: there were serious complications with her pregnancy, and to avoid a miscarriage she had to stay in hospital on bedrest... and the doctors didn't hold out much in the way of hope.
