Price of New Missal
October 18, 2012 4 Comments
I am a 70-year-old pensioner and a staunch Catholic. I have a week-day missal and a Sunday missal which I have been using for years.
“I can’t afford the new missals!”
Now it was decided to change the wording in the Mass to suit whoever, I must buy new missals at such a high price for a pensioner. I cannot afford the missals.
How many other Catholics can afford new missals? What are we doing to our faith?
On the other hand, our BCP’s are out of print and date. Date? Yes, well just think of present and future Saints for one. And you also only ever find them lying around under dust in second-hand book shops.
About Fr Stephen Smuts
‘Just checked the price in Canada for the new RC Missal; It’s $125 per copy for an ordinary hard cover copy plus taxes.Leather ones are much more pricey. It seems that there are pew cards of the Liturgy of the Mass for $10 a copy, but for those who want the full copy including the collects etc., well that’s a bit pricey for a pensioner.
I purchased a copy of the Book of Common Prayer (Canada 1962 edition) when I arrived here for $39.95. A copy of the Book of Alternative Services costs $21.95.I really do feel for the 70 year old pensioner writing in this blogg.Perhaps if the editor would get an address I’d get some friends to chip in and buy him one? (seriously).Book prices are expensive now as many churches have their liturgies ‘on line’ and freely available on the web. It has been said that books as we know them may well be gone within the next two decades; very sad really .( I cant imagine taking my ipad into mass to follow the Liturgy! It would be too distracting.)
With computer models changing almost annually, the Missal or prayer book is a more long lasting option.When changes are made that means the publishers have to print new editions. Also Changes in the Roman catholic Missal mean that revisions in some other churches follow. However some revisions are quite disturbing. I attended a service at the United Church here and barely recognised the creed which seemed more like a’new age’ prayer to me than the universal declaration of Christain faith.No offense but it frightened me and I felt quite uneasy hearing it.
What I love about The Book of Common Prayer is that wherever you are ,in any part of the Anglican Communion when it is heard, the wording is the same . I have attended Eucharist in Burma, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore and where the BCP is used, well people know where they are because they recognise the words.
Whilst I do appreciate some of the newer revisions of the Liturgy, nothing tops the language of Cramner’s English; beautiful language, dignified phrasing which speaks right to the heart if we listen to the words as we read them.Sadly, many copies of the old BCP may only be found as Fr Smuts has said in second hand bookshops or on dusty cupboard shelves in churches or in boxes in parish church crypts!
I believe that when the 400th anniversary edition of the King James Bible was released, these editions were priced at 400 pounds UK.( that’s of course the special edition.)
However a soft cover copy of the King James Bible here published to commemorate Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee sells for $5.
Let us support and thank those organisations for the work they do to put God’s Word into the hands of the less fortunate.
Let’s also support the work of the Prayer Book societies in various parts of the world.
Amen there Michael! As I have said, I will die with my KJV and my BCP (1662), though I am not a King James only guy at all, I have just about every righteous English Translation known to man!
The ESV is sweet too! (And of course the NASB, Update, 1995)
In Canada a three volume set of the complete Sunday and daily Missal, leather bound and in a slipcase is $103 at Chapters. The new Sunday missal can be found as low as $25. I don’t think that’s too bad. Most parishes also have the Sunday missals for the year in the pews, and I’m sure the original poster could obtain one of those from the parish.
It is a reasonable point, I think. A worthwhile thing to do is for people to buy missals for those who simply cannot afford them. Money is donated to a fund, and when they have enough money that they can get a bulk purchase discount, a large number of missals are ordered. These are given away as needed by the parish priest, in such a way that neither the receiver nor the giver is identified and embarrassed. I know of one RC parish which is doing this, and last I heard they had purchased and given away about 50 missals.