Muse on a Monday

“God,
you are our beginning and you will be our end;
we are made in your image and likeness.
We praise and thank you for this day.
This is the day on which you created light
and saw that it was good.
This is the day in whose early morning light
we discovered the tomb was empty,
and encountered Christ, the world’s true light.
This is the day you have made;
we shall rejoice and be glad in it.” 

from A New Zealand Prayer Book/He Karakia Mibinare oAotearou [1]

 MUSE PROFILE

What is A New Zealand Prayer Book:

My muse this week is not a person, but a collection of prayers and liturgy from the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia.

Why This Book:

Coming from a faith tradition that does not use a prayer book in worship, I am intrigued by the concept of prayer books and designated prayers or liturgies for specific times of day, days of the week, and seasons of the year. Always one to play with words and experiment with ways to say old things in new ways, I appreciate the prayer book’s innovation with words and use of inclusive language, while never straying too far from its biblical foundations. I am fascinated by its incorporation of the Maori language.

This prayer is in a section of daily devotions and liturgies of the Word. Each devotion uses a portion of the LORD’s Prayer as the introductory theme, followed by a prayer that highlights and expands on that theme. The excerpt of the prayer above is based on the beginning and end of the LORD’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven, the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever.”[2]

Why this prayer:

I love that in the course of a few sentences, the prayer spans the first and new testaments and resonates with language from multiple psalms and biblical passages. Until recently I thought one could only learn the language of the Bible from the Bible itself. My worship classes taught me that liturgy, too, can bathe us in the biblical tradition. This excerpt is only one-third of the entire prayer yet it is so scripturally rich! The language and imagery makes my heart flutter (i.e. the writer in me meets the seminarian in me)!

[1] The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia, A New Zealand Prayer Book (Harper Collins, 1989), 106.

[2] The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia, A New Zealand Prayer Book (Harper Collins, 1989), 106.