Friday 7:30pm Durham University Orchestral Society Chamber Orchestra Concert

Saturday 7pm Quiz Night & Pizza in the Institute

Sunday 23rd November, 2025 - Christ the King; The Sunday next before Advent

11am Parish Eucharist The Rev.’ d Canon Gavin Wort, Lead Chaplain Durham University

6pm Evening Prayer, & at 6:30pm Devotional Service: Victoria’s Requiem Mass

Sunday 30th November, 2025 - Advent Sunday

11am Parish Eucharist

6pm Advent Carol Service

Mid-week service: Wednesday 10am Holy Communion

Please see the Calendar of services attached. Also, David’s Music Notes for November.

Quiz night with Pizza
Saturday November 22nd at 7pm at the Institute
Tickets £7.50 All profits to go towards the new kitchen.

Evening Prayer at St Oswald's this Sunday 23rd will be followed by a devotional performance of Thome Luis de Victoria's Requiem mass, composed in 1605. This masterpiece of the early choral repertoire will be performed by the Aquilo Consort, directed by David Caroe. The Requiem performance will start at c.6:30pm, but do please also join us for Evening Prayer at 6:00pm. Admission is free.

Advent: Advent is always an especially exciting time in our services at St Oswald’s. One of the big events of our liturgical year is the Advent Carol Service. This service is shaped by the Advent Antiphons. Alongside them we use poetry to help our reflections on these antiphons. This year the poems are all by women poets. Attached are the texts of the poems which are for your preparation for hearing them at the service.

Evening Service - for your prayers. Like many parishes in the Church of England, the congregation at Parish Eucharist and at the mid-week service has steadily grown since the pandemic. However, Evensong has not seen a congregation growing around it. David, Andy, and I are convinced that it is important to offer a service every Sunday evening, and are committed to this happening, no matter how small the congregation is. It is important to offer something for the few people who do come and the time of prayer and worship is necessary and important. Also, another factor working in our favour is that the choir is giving a strong and vibrant lead to the service at the regular Choral Evensongs. At PCC recently we had a helpful discussion about Evensong. It was commented that people are unlikely to be able to come to Church twice on a Sunday but that this is potentially a service that people would value at St. Oswald’s. So, all the ingredients are in place for our evening service to be a warm, worshipful service with a growing congregation. This note is really for your thoughts and prayers about our evening service at St Oswald’s. In the new year there will be a questionnaire sent out which will ask for your thoughts on the timing of the service and the type of service offered.

Durham Union Society Debate at St. Oswald’s on Friday 28th November at 8:30pm, This House believes Revolutions never truly succeed. You will be very welcome to attend.

Foodbank – Weekly message from Lynda Delf : On Sunday £30 and 3kg of food was donated in Church, this will provide meals for 4 people and the money used to buy more much needed food. Many thanks for your continuing support.

Our current shortages include tinned meat, fish, potatoes, tomatoes, spaghetti, biscuits, sugar, jam, rice, coffee and kettle food such as instant soup and noodles. We always need longlife milk and fruit juice, as well as household cleaning materials and toilet rolls.

We are also collecting festive food for our Christmas boxes which will be distributed next month.

Thank you

Parish Magazine: There are still a few copies of the current issue available from the back of church (priced £2). Any remaining content for the next issue should reach Stevie Taylor or Sarah Knight by the copy deadline of Sunday 23rd November, please.

Receptive Ecumenism: Attached is information about a course on ecumenism.

Amongst the sick please pray for Angie Robley, Carol Simmons.

With All Good Wishes and Prayers, Peter

The Reverend Peter Kashouris

St Oswald's Vicarage, Church Street, Durham [email protected]