Subject: News from the University Church

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News from the University Church
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On Monday I visited the Financial Control Authority in Canary Wharf. It was a follow-up to a session I had had in the Old Library with some of their executives when I spoke at a Said Business School dinner. The Dockland Light Railway runs through the East End, parallel to Cable Street, where the East Enders resisted Oswald Mosley and the fascists in 1936, past two famous Hawksmoor churches: St George’s in the East and St Anne’s, Limehouse. Then the glass cathedrals to capitalism arise from the docks and the train turns a sharp ninety degrees to the right and slowly enters their wide open mouth like a James Bond fantasy. Going into that entrance feels like a mighty risk or game of chance. Then we are disgorged into a capsuled parallel world, insulated from the open air like any airport departure lounge in some large city. No one lives in the gated Canary Wharf. People come and go from the railway stations to their desks and home again. I was there to talk about ethics and values with the HR Officer and her assistant, who had read theology at Oxford. Because it seems that Human relations specialists are the ones who are facilitating the discussion of what ultimately matters, what we are working for, what is right, and how to find fulfillment.
Janet McMullin Funeral
Many of you have been asking when Janet’s funeral would be. It is most likely to be in the week beginning the 26th October. The reason for this delay is that the postmortem process has not yet been completed. 
  Services this Week

   Tuesdays & Thursdays

    12.15pm Lunchtime Eucharist

   Sunday 11th October 
   10.30am Choral Eucharist
   Mass Setting: K. Leighton, Missa Brevis
   Communion Anthem: B. Britten, Jubilate
   
    Preacher: Canon Brian Mountford

   


Forthcoming Events 

Tuesdays 8pm, Vaults & Garden:Bible Study
The Bible Study for students meets in the Vaults cafe every Tuesday evening in term time.

Monday 19th October, 7.45pm, Old Library: 
The Moot
We will be joined by Revd Dr Shaun Henson, chaplain of St. Hugh’s College, who will be leading is in a discussion about humility.



Forthcoming Concerts
 
Friday, 16th & Saturday 17th October, 7.30pm: Oxford Martyrs Play
A new play written by Penny Boxall, performed by the students of Magdalen College School. Tickets available from their website. 

Thursday, 22nd October, 7pm: Noye's Fludde
Tickets available from Tickets Oxford
The Oxford Martyrs Play

The University Church and MCS Drama present Oxford Martyrs, a new promenade theatre production commissioned to commemorate the 460th anniversary of the deaths of Protestant Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. Exploring Reformation martyrdom from both Catholic and Protestant perspectives, Oxford Martyrs will be performed at the University Church, where the original trials of the Oxford Martyrs took place. Led by their narrator, an historic Old Waynflete, audiences will have a chance to journey through the tempestuous years of the English Reformation in a production which reflects upon faith, duty, and what ideas are worth dying for.

The production will run on the evenings of Friday 16th and Saturday 17th October.

To book a ticket, please email ikhan@mcsoxford.org.uk
Poetry Corner

Edmund Bonner was both Nicholas Ridley’s predecessor and successor as Bishop of London during the turbulent Reformation/Counter-Reformation periods. Bishop first under Henry VIII, he was deposed in 1549 and, in 1550, Ridley began his three years’ office in the role. Perhaps curiously, he still invited Bonner’s mother to dine with him at Fulham Palace throughout his tenure; she would have been familiar with the palace from her son’s time there.

In 1553, with Ridley deposed, Bonner was again instated as Bishop. History has not been kind to Bonner; Foxe, in his Acts and Monuments, writes:

"This cannibal in three years space three hundred martyrs slew
They were his food, he loved so blood, he sparèd none he knew."


He features in our new play, The Oxford Martyrs, on 16th and 17th October. For tickets, email ikhan@mcsoxford.org.
St Mary's Church, High Street, OX1 4BJ, Oxford, United Kingdom
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