View this email online if it doesn't display correctly Next Sunday evening I have to preach at University College. Away matches are always more difficult than home fixtures. You know the home crowd, what you can get away with and what jokes they’ll get. The readings for Sunday are awful; biblically esoteric, if you know what I mean, and not easily applicable to everyday life. But can I say that? Will the Chaplain be comfortable if I say not everything in the Bible is useful? I really want to have a go at the Church of England’s depressingly reactionary approach to modernity and I’ve decided I will. Then I’ll kill two birds with one stone and begin to develop the theme of self-identity (which I have to speak about next Thursday in the Work, Sex and Self series). It’s a good theme for Lent anyway and I’ll look at the paradox that we are affirmed by being made in the image of God but are called by Jesus says to deny ourselves if we wish to follow him. I might also consider the problems caused when science seems to reduce the self to a set of neuro-biochemical data and to ask whether something more transcendent emerges. Not that I intend to indulge in body/soul dualism, but to unpack the kind of things novels speak of. So you’ll see I’ve got a bit of work to do. By the way, some people still seem uncertain about my departure date. My last service will be on 24 April at 10.30am followed by a party in church afterwards to which everyone is invited. Services — Tuesdays & Thursdays 12.15 pm Lunchtime Eucharist — Sunday 21st February 2016 10.30am - Choral Eucharist & University Sermon Preacher: Dr Amia Srinivasan, philospher and ethicist Music: Haydn, Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo Haydn, Insane et vanae curae Plain Song Series 24 February – Pre-Reformation Hymns in Bach Cantatas: the Case of ‘Christ lag in Todesbanden’ This session explores the afterlife of popular vernacular medieval ‘Leisen’ (hymns ending in ‘Kyrieleison’), following their transformation into chorales in the Reformation and then becoming signature tunes of Protestant identity. Three major stages of the Leise ‘Christ ist erstanden’ are introduced and experienced through singing: 1) the medieval liturgy in which it was developed, 2) Luther’s continuation of it in ‘Christ lag in Todesbanden’, 3) Bach’s setting of the chorale in the spectacular early cantata BWV 4. There will be a staging of the medieval congregational singing with the audience as well as excerpts from Bach’s cantata performed by members of the Oxford Bach Soloists. Professor Henrike Lähnemann is a German medievalist and holds the Chair of Medieval German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. She is a Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford. Work, Sex & Self Series 25th February – SELF 7.30pm Vaults Cafe  Philosophy and religion have often sought to address one of the key questions asked by every human being: who am I? In this session Canon Mountford will look at the subject of personal identity: the concept we develop about ourselves over the course of our life based both on choices we make, our belief systems and how we spend our time, as well as things which we have no control over, such as our ethnic origins and the place we grew up. He will tackle a number of pertinent questions including: What are the features that define me as a person? When did I begin and what will happen to me when I die? And how do I, throughout my life, become my best possible self? Revd Canon Brian Mountford MBE has been the vicar of University Church for thirty years. Before that he was vicar of Southgate in North London. Brian is also a Fellow of St Hilda’s College and an honorary Canon of Christ Church Cathedral. Other forthcoming Events — Check out our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/smvoxford Forthcoming Concerts Saturday 20th February 1-2pm Treasures of the Piano - Free Concert Kapsetaki Twins Recital Works by Chopin, Liszt, Dvorak & Piazzolla — Tuesday 23rd February 7.30pm Hertford College Choir concert Handel: Two Coronation Anthems Parry: Blest Pair of Sirens also featuring music by Brahms & Purcell Free admission with retiring collection — Saturday 27th February 7.30pm Queen's College Choir: Brahms Requiem Tallis Spem in Alium Motets by Howells & Bruckner £20/£12; £18/£10 (concessions); £5 (students) www.ticketsoxford.com, 01865 305 305, Playhouse box office Poetry corner — Hayle Bishop Valentine whose day this is All the Ayre is thy Diocese And all the chirping Queristers And other birds ar thy parishioners Thou marryest every yeare The Lyrick Lark, and the graue whispering Doue, The Sparrow that neglects his life for loue, The houshold bird with the redd stomacher Thou makst the Blackbird speede as soone, As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halcyon The Husband Cock lookes out and soone is spedd And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed. This day more cheerfully than ever shine This day which might inflame thy selfe old Valentine. - John Donne (1572-1631) A slightly belated Valentine from Poetry Corner, courtesy of John Donne. In this poem (written for the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of James I), Donne dedicates Nature to Valentine; the air is his diocese, birds his choristers – and Donne presents us with that gorgeous image of the ‘houshold bird’ with its ‘redd stomacher’. For Donne, Man and Nature are the same; a robin can wear a stomacher, a hen has a feather-bed in his anthropomorphised world, where everything works towards faith. His joy at the start of spring also functions as a dedication to a saint, so that his love of nature is never far from mankind. This is an etching of St Mary's by Valerie Thornton. It will be going into the next art auction at Mallams Auctioneers on Weds 9th March 2016, in St Michael Street, Oxford. It is a limited etching, being number 17/25. The proceeds from the sale will go to the Compassion charity, to sponsor a child.  If anyone is interested or requires more details, please contact Denis Maguire at denis.maguire2@btinternet.com

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