St Oswald's
On 17th February the Anglican Church remembers Janani Luwum, Archbishop & martyr of Uganda. The Most Reverend Janani Luwum (d 1977) was the Archbishop of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi and Boga Zaire when 45 years ago this month he was murdered by the dictator Idi Amin. At the time the Church in Uganda was on the […]
The Roman Emperor Claudius II needed soldiers. He suspected that marriage made men want to stay at home with their wives, instead of fighting wars, so he outlawed marriage. A kind-hearted young priest named Valentine felt sorry for all the couples who wanted to marry, but who couldn’t. So secretly he married as many couples […]
In bygone centuries, Christians said their last farewells to the Christmas season on Candlemas, 2nd February. This is exactly 40 days after Christmas Day itself. In New Testament times 40 days old was an important age for a baby boy: it was when they made their first ‘public appearance’. Mary, like all good Jewish mothers, went […]
We live in a world where we can expect the sun to rise tomorrow and the milk to pour out of the bottle when we tilt it over our cereal. But for God, the properties of matter and the biological processes that we know and read about in textbooks are simply the usual ways He […]
January is a time for thinking about New Year Resolutions, even though we can struggle to keep them very long! However, this month is a good time to re-set our spiritual disciplines. These practices, which engage our whole person, help our spiritual growth as disciples of Christ. If we want more of Jesus’ presence in our lives, we […]
The story of the coming of the Magi grew in the telling. By the 6th century they had acquired names: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. By medieval times they were considered to be kings. Whoever they were, we do know from Matthew that they brought three gifts to Jesus. What about their gifts of gold, frankincense and […]
Everyone knows that it was on ‘ the feast of Stephen’, that ‘good king Wenceslas looked out’, as the carol tells us. The ‘feast of Stephen’, which falls on 26th December, honours a very brave man – the first Christian martyr. Stephen was a member of the church in Jerusalem in its very early days, and […]
Shepherds in first century Palestine knew the wonders and ravages of nature: star-lit nights, cold and heat, storm and calm, and the unwelcome attention of predators, both animal and human. They were more aware than we of human dependency on the seasons, and more respectful than us of the precarious nature of existence. Fear, as well […]
How can a Jewish infant born to a peasant family in first century Palestine be the source of peace between God and man in the 21st century?
Ever wonder how the ‘Save the Children’ charity first began? It was born out of the horrors of warfare 100 years ago, when a retired Christian schoolteacher decided to help the suffering refugees in Europe. Eglantine Jebb’s courage, compassion and determination gained her national recognition. Her work has saved literally millions of lives, and so […]