Hillside Parishes Magazine

We have gone ahead to print a booklet for alternative liturgy, replacing SII at Cowesby, SIII at Felixkirk and Kirby Knowle, Rite B at Leake and Boltby. (The BCP remains unchanged and in use.) The changes are not great and in fact fuse all 3 revised services into one! Besides, local practice had gone some way towards that, but where a prayer is old or traditional we have retained that form. On the other hand, where revision has produced a few gems (not many!) they have been added, and where research has highlighted a change to the original intention (e.g. when we say the Prayer of Humble Access) that has been made. We have added rubrics in red once more (the stage directions which used to be in red print - hence rubrick, the printer’s red block). Those parts we do not want to use, we have omitted - so as to save worshippers some searching for the place on whichever page we happen to have reached or skipped.

One aspect of revision that I have disliked, since SIII was introduced, was referring to scripture instead of quoting it. If you analyse any BCP services you will be amazed at how it uses great gobbets of scripture verbatim. I do not take it for granted that people otherwise know what texts you are referring to if they are not quoted directly, especially in the recent revisions of the Baptism service since SII.

I think it is imperative that where scripture is used it is quoted accurately. Sadly, many translations since the RSV, the most accurate and faithful translation, have caused a babble of confusion. Too much paraphrasing has crept in, so that in fact the reader is seduced from the original idiom and therefore the meaning. The best translation of the epistles is Phillips, who has remained faithful to the original meaning. Although the N.E.B. did try to do the same, it resulted in a racy read somewhat thin on meaning.

Once upon a time the Bible was the mainstay of communication and idiom within everyday parlance. With one version common to all even the Navy could communicate comments in chapter and verse. Now all is a fog, and quoting one version falls on deaf ears where another version is used, especially in schools. We have no common starting point. The revision and rewriting and return to the original version of the Lord’s Prayer illustrates this point very well, even though one translation was more accurate. Sometimes worship at this very central point results in an incomprehensible babble. Heaven knows what God makes of it!

The Lord’s Prayer is a good illustration of how originally clearer meaning was injected to the prayer by Cranmer, who borrowed trespass from Jesus’ later comments in Matthew after giving the disciples the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus used the word debt, still retained in Scotland. Trespass somehow conveys the greater reality of invading someone else’s space - this is what the shortcoming is all about. Temptation is also translateable as "time of trial", and "deliver us from the evil one" is also valid. Here both refer to the day of judgment and the role of Satan in mythology as tempter and accuser at the last judgment.

I could do a whole series on key words, where the original meaning has been allowed to slip away in modern translation. (The classic example is the reference (October 1999 H.P.M.) to the American translation that has Saul going to the bathroom instead of turning aside in the cave (to have a pee) - visions of gold-plated taps, in the desert of old, hardly squares with the vision of reality!)

We need to exercise some care and circumspection in how we approach scripture, and how we appropriate scripture for worship. I’ve endeavoured to return to the original and enhance our worship rather than offer a plain replacement. May the Holy Word grow in you and on you.  T. H.

PS Readers may like to refer to February 1999 H.P.M. (Cranmer) to refer to earlier thoughts on this subject. Ed.

Saturday August 5th, Leake St Mary. Winifred Chandler, 93, of Knayton, who passed away suddenly but peacefully. She was a regular communicant at home, although she had been confined to home these last three years,. Very dependent on her daughter Pat.

Saturday August 26th. St Wilfrid, Kirby Knowle. Andy Wood and Andrea Ould, both of Kirby Knowle.

The Rev.Liz Culling and I are getting married and you are all invited to our service at Cherry Burton, after which there will be a parish reception in the Church Hall. Please let your churchwarden know if you intend coming, so that we can cater more easily. Faced with the choice of her house or mine, it seems to be mine! T.H.

(For those wanting transport - a coach will be arranged if there are sufficient numbers. Please contact Terence Allinson (597356); price guide for 20 people on coach - £9 per person.)

On behalf of the Thirsk Committee, I would like to thank everyone who supported the R.N.L.I. Coffee Morning at Newburn, Borrowby, on July 27th. Thanks to your generosity £459-44 was raised. Joy Kiteley.

The United Nations has proclaimed this millenium year as The Year of the Culture of Peace. Thirsk Meeting of the Society of Friends wholeheartedly supports this campaign and, with the backing of Churches Together in Thirsk, is holding three public discussion group meetings, from 7.30 - 9.00 p.m. at The Friends Meeting House in Kirkgate. There is a concluding meeting in St Mary’s Church.

It must be stressed that these four meetings are not primarily religious. We welcome members of all faiths and denominations, and also of NONE, for we recognise that the churches have no monopoly of virtue, wisdom or enlightenment. We would like to include in our speakers two or three senior pupils of Thirsk School in the hope that their generation will make a better job of peacekeeping than ours has.

John Simpson, Assistant Clerk to Thirsk Quakers (01845 597465)