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Tomorrow is Holocaust Memorial Day – a day on which we remember the liberation of the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, on January 27, 1945.
One of the most important aims of the day is to help ensure mankind doesn't repeat the horrific, cruel and inhumane mistakes of its past. In Auschwitz alone over 1.1.million men, women and children were killed and it is estimated that Nazi persecution throughout the war resulted the deaths of over 13 million people.
Each year Holocaust Memorial Day has a specific theme, including 'remembering genocides: lessons for the future' and 'one person can make a difference' - helping us to also reflect upon those affected by more recent atrocities, in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo and Myanmar. The 2018 theme is 'the power of words', the idea being that words can make a difference - both for good and evil. Over this weekend Oxford Town Hall is hosting an exhibition entitled “Never Again” part of a series of events taking place across Oxford which will help us to restate the continued need for vigilance and to motivate people, individually and collectively, to ensure that the horrendous crimes, racism and victimisation committed during the Holocaust are neither forgotten nor repeated, whether in Europe or elsewhere in the world. I hope we will all take time to reflect on the dangers of anti-Semitism, racism and all forms of discrimination and continue to fight against it whenever it is found in the dark corners of our lives and world.
God who knows us,
who never forgets us,
we thank you that, when you ‘remember’ us, you gaze on us in a way
that makes new worlds possible.
Help us to remember
the horrors others have faced and face.
Help us to remember
the people we’d rather forget.
Help us to remember
the dark corners of our own lives,
for you transfigure everything,
bringing light and life.
Amen.
Prayer for Holocaust Memorial Day from the Council of Christians and Jews London, 2014
The Revd Charlotte Bannister-Parker Associate Priest |
| | The Week Ahead:
—This Sunday
Sunday 28th January The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany
10.30 Choral Eucharist with University Sermon Preacher: Professor Mona Siddiqui OBE
18.00 Choral Evensong (Candlemas) at Wadham College Preacher: The Revd James Crockford
This Week
Sunday 18.00 Choral Evensong Wadham College
Preacher: The Revd James Crockford
Monday 9.00 Morning Prayer Chancel
12.15 Eucharist Chancel
18.15 Choral Evening Prayer Worcester College
Tuesday, King Charles the Martyr, 1649 9.00 Morning Prayer Chancel
12.15 Eucharist Chancel
18.00 Book Club Nosebag (Bar)
18.15 Choral Evensong Merton College
Wednesdaym, John Bosco, 1888 9.00 Morning Prayer Chancel
John Bosco, 1888 12.15 Eucharist Chancel
18.00 Choral Evensong Keble College
Thursday, Brigid, c.525 9.00 Morning Prayer Chancel
12.15 Eucharist Chancel
12.45 Lunchtime Bible Study Vestry
20.00 Singing the Word (1) Old Library
21.00 Sung Compline Chancel
Friday 9.00 Morning Prayer Chancel
12.15 Eucharist Chancel
18.30 Choral Evensong Queen’s College
Saturday 18.15 Choral Evensong New College
Next Sunday
Sunday 4th February The Presentation of Christ in the Temple
9.30 Family Service
10.30 Choral Eucharist
Preacher: The Revd James Crockford
12.00 A Life Worth Living (‘Trust’) in the Old Library
15.30 German Lutheran Service
18.00 Choral Evensong at Jesus College
Preacher: Sister Frances Dominica DL OBE
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| | A Life worth Living
‘The glory of God is a human being fully alive’ (St Irenaeus of Lyons). How can the wisdom of the Christian tradition help us to live well? Christian humanism is animated by the idea that human beings are created in the image of God. Indeed, secular humanism finds many of its antecedents in religious ideas about human dignity and human rights. The term ‘humanism’ embraces many significant intellectual currents in Western culture but it may require further interrogation if it is to help us articulate a renewed vision of human flourishing.
Each session starts with coffee and bagels in the Old Library at the University Church. Our discussions will be open and free-ranging as we explore what it means to be human and what ‘a life worth living’ might look like.
4 Feb 12:00-13:00 Trust
The Revd Charlotte Bannister-Parker and the Revd James Crockford, University Church
Trust often seems hard and risky. Caught between suspicion and fear, it also seems to be in short supply. Who do you trust, and why? The theologian, Rowan Williams, has argued that ‘Christianity asks you to trust the God it talks about before it asks you to sign up to a complete system’. How does knowing who and what to trust help us to live well?
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| | | | Music and Mind
A three-part series on Wednesday nights in 2nd, 4th and 6th week, exploring concepts of music, transcendence, and psychology. Old Library, 19:30-21:00.
7 Feb Music, Modernity and Meaning – The Revd Dr Jonathan Arnold
Amidst widespread illiteracy in late-medieval Europe, aesthetic experience was a gateway to the numinous and transcendent. Renaissance humanists’ criticisms of Church musicians unwittingly paved the way for a new age of logocentricism where words, language and doctrine dominated as the fundamental expression of the divine, thus transforming the nature of aesthetic religious expression. But in the modern secularised West increasing levels of biblical and religious illiteracy, and decline in membership of institutional religions, has seen a concurrent increase in the appetite for aesthetic spiritual experiences. We will explore how this search for the numinous, mystical and transcendent interpretation through musical aesthetics has parallels with pre-Reformation spirituality and asks what the implications are for the future of institutional Christian religion in the west.
Jonathan Arnold is Dean of Divinity and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He is a former member of St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir and The Sixteen and co-founder of the Oxford girl choristers’ choir Frideswide Voices. His publications include the Great Humanists and Sacred Music in Secular Society. His next book will be entitled Music and Faith: Western Sacred Music and its Audience.
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| | Singing the word
Delve into the rich and beautiful world of plainchant, monasticism, and the medieval musical landscape with this workshop series. The evening will start in the Old Library with a glass of wine and a short talk, followed by singing practice, during which participants will learn to tackle a difficult piece of chant. At 9pm, we will move to the chancel to sing compline together.
8.00pm Talk and Singing Workshop (Old Library)
9.00pm Compline by Candlelight (Chancel)
1 Feb Why Compline? – Wilf Jones
15 Feb Hildegard von Bingen – Esther Brazil
1 Mar Singing the Word – Fr Peter Allan CR (Mirfield)
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| | | Culture Corner
Caroline Mackenzie and Feminist Christian Iconography, 26 January 2018
Tomorrow (Saturday) we’ll be meeting in the Old Library at 10.30am for a Reflection Morning on “Imagining the Divine”. Among the objects we’ll be looking at is a series of statues by the artist Caroline Mackenzie that depict Christ-like figures as women, including “The Crucified Woman” and “Resurrected Woman”. The third is pictured below: “Becoming Human: Creator, bronze sculpture - No. 5 in The Christa Journey series”.
Mackenzie writes:
“This woman has become a creative human being. Her humanity is rooted in the western Judeo-Christian tradition in the divine female figure of Wisdom, who in Proverbs 8 v. 30 is described as a master craftsman beside God and daily his delight, rejoicing before him always.”
How do you feel about the idea of God as feminine? How do you imagine God? Is it even possible to meaningfully describe God? Join us on Saturday morning for a lively discussion.
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| | Call for donations of books and toys
Do you have any unused children’s books or soft toys you would like to donate to the church? We are creating a Children’s Corner for babies and preschool-aged children who are too small to go to Sunday School during the Eucharist. The aim is to collect enough quiet toys and books to fill a chest that will be kept at the back of the church (no rattles or battery-operated toys, please). Drop off donations in the church office between 9.30am and 5pm, Monday-Friday, or email esther.brazil@universitychurch.ox.ac.uk for more details.
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