We are a Church of England parish with a strong tradition of music in worship, where all are very welcome. As an ancient Church in the centre of Durham, St Oswald's is a reservoir of peace for all who enter it.

The Sunday Eucharist is at 11:00am, and we have a play and books corner by the font for any younger worshipper who feels a parent or carer would enjoy it there. Evensong is at 6:00pm on Sundays, either in the chancel, or roughly every other week during term time when the usual hymns expand to a full choral setting, in the body of the church. Midweek Holy Communion is at 10:00am on Wednesdays, and the church is usually open from 9:30am till round about 5:00pm (or dusk, if earlier) on weekdays.

Thursday, 26th March 2026 - Passiontide: The Commemoration of Harriet Monsell, Founder and First Mother Superior of the Community of St John the Baptist, 1883

You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. (For they could not endure the order that was given, ‘If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.’ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Hebrews 12:18-24, New Revised Standard Version - Anglicized Edition

The Collect of the Day:

Most merciful God, who by the death and resurrection of thy Son Jesus Christ hast delivered and saved the world: grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross we may triumph in the power of his victory; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

Common Worship 

The Life of Prayer:

Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. Prayer, the approach of the Soul to God, the Response of Grace. The entrance of light into the Soul. Spiritual illumination. The Creature laying itself bare before God. The utterance of contrition. The communing with God as with a friend. The expression of gratitude. The secret revelation between the Soul and God. The interaction of Love. The pleading of the Soul with God for others Union with the Intercession of Jesus. The attaining to the Vision of God the outburst of Joy. The manifestation of the Divine Glory, the entrance into Peace. The Soul face to face with God, Gazing into the unspeakable mysteries of the Incarnation, Redemption, the manifestation of the Sacraments. The operation of the Holy Ghost revealing the attributes of Wisdom, Holiness, Justice, Love, of the Three in One. The mystery of Life, of Death, of Glory, the attainment of Union.

Harriett Monsell

A Poem for Passiontide:

Anoint the wounds
of my spirit
with the balm
of forgiveness.
Pour the oil
of your calm
upon the waters
of my heart

Take the squeal
of frustration
from the wheels of my passion
that the power
of your tenderness
may smooth
the way I love

That the tedium
of giving
in the risk of surrender
and the reaching
out naked
to a world
that must wound

may be kindled fresh daily
in a blaze of compassion
– that the grain may fall gladly
to burst in the ground
– and the harvest abound.

Father Ralph Wright (1938), Benedictine Monk at St Louis Abbey, Missouri, USA

Durham Diocesan Prayer Cycle Monthly Deanery Intention - March 2026:

Lanchester Deanery

The Prayer of King Oswald of Northumbria:

Let us together implore the living and true and almighty God in his mercy to defend us against the pride and fierceness of our enemy; for that God knows our cause is just, and that we fight for the salvation of our nation.

Amen.

(Prayed by King Oswald with his Army on the Battlefield on the Eve of the Battle of Heavenfield, AD634)