Sunday, 26th October 2025 - The Last Sunday after Trinity11:00am Parish Eucharist4:00pm Harvest Celebration at Coxhoe ChurchWednesday 10am MatinsSunday, 2nd November 2025 All Saints’ Sunday11:00am Parish EucharistCelebrant & Preacher: The Rev.’d Gary Eaborn, Curate at St. John’s Wood, and formerly an ordinand here.6pm All Souls Commemoration of the Faithful DepartedPlease add the names of the departed who you would like to be remembered at this service. There is a list at the back of Church.Please see the Calendar of services attached.Foodbank – Weekly message from Lynda Delf : On Sunday £10 and 14 kg of food was collected from Church, a Parishioner gave me 8kg of food and £10, this will provide meals for 25 people and the money used to purchase more food. Many thanks for your continuing generous support.This week our shortages include longlife milk and fruit juice, rice, jam, sugar, biscuits, coffee, tinned tomatoes, potatoes, fish, spaghetti hoops, rice pudding and fruit, We also need household cleaning materials and toilet rolls. Thank you very much.Harvest Celebration at Coxhoe Church: It would be good to support this special service at St. Mary’s Coxhoe, following on from the school service at the Church. Please bring offering of food for the Coxhoe Food Pantry. There will not be a service at St. Oswald’s that evening - Sunday, 26th October 2025.Parish Magazine: The Autumn issue of the magazine should now have reached all our regular subscribers. Further copies are available (price £2) from the back of church. Tradition v Change? The Creed of Nicaea and the Development of Doctrine. Does faith change or does it stay the same? A public lecture for the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, by Prof Karen Kilby, holder of the Bede Chair of Catholic Theology and director of the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University. Thursday, 30th October 2025 at 7.00pm, at St Cuthbert’s, Old Elvet DH1 3HL.Amongst the sick please pray for Angie Robley.With All Good Wishes and Prayers, Peter
There has been a bonfire every year in the churchyard for hundreds of years, and this year's bonfire took place, for once, on 5th November itself. Our usual crowd was even bigger than previously, with St. Oswald's schoolkids, students, and longstanding residents enjoying the fire, the sparklers, and the refreshments. Thanks to everyone who came and made it such a lovely evening, to Roz Layton for organising everything brilliantly, to everyone who contributed toffee, biscuits and sweets, and to Giles Radford, Scout Leader extraordinaire, silhouetted in the photo, for building and superintending the magnificent fire.
Oswald, King of Northumbria 634–642ᴀᴅ, was instrumental in bringing Christianity to this region, and is celebrated on 5th August every year with a choral evensong at the cathedral in which we traditionally join to celebrate our patron saint. Generally, we meet in church for a short prequel, and then peregrinate the 715 yds. (0.65 km) across Kingsgate Bridge to the mother church, though this year for a variety of reasons we made our own ways there. Nonetheless, we were very graciously welcomed by the Dean as the 'pilgrims' from St. Oswald's, and three of our younger members made a fine job of processing His Northumbrian Majesty's banner to the high altar.The banner party is pictured here with other members of the congregation, in an image that has been watercolourised to try and rescue a truly dreadful snap.
ᴘʜᴏᴛᴏ ᴄʀᴇᴅɪᴛ: ᴛʀᴇᴠᴏʀ ꜱᴍɪᴛʜCongratulations to David Harris, our much-loved organist and choirmaster, who is joint winner of the 2024 Laudemus! competition with his setting of the anthem Hail, Gladdening Light! for SATB and organ. Laudemus!, an adult choir which meets annually to sing evensong in churches down in Dorset, will be singing the winning anthems at Wimborne Minster on 10th August, which by happy coincidence is also David's birthday.The Royal School of Church Music will be publishing both winning pieces, and our choir at St. Oswald's will be singing Hail, Gladdening Light! just as soon as it has been premièred.David has been Director of Music at St. Oswald's since his second year at Durham University in 2014. Before that, he was an organ scholar at Portsmouth Cathedral, and works as a performer, teacher, and church musician.
