Services This Week

Dear All,

Services this week are taking place in person or via livestream through our YouTube Channel. Please find gathering times and service sheet links below.

Friday 31 October
10.30am - BCP Holy Communion (Revd Dr Mark Scarlata)

Sunday 2 November / All Saints’ Sunday
11am - Holy Communion
Sermon: ‘All Saints’ Sunday’
Service Sheet: Here

Other notices:

Garden Renovation: The first stage of the renovation has now taken place and the second stage will take place in mid-November. Due to ongoing anti-social behaviour in, and challenges to maintaining, the churchyard in its present form, these renovations have been agreed in order to restore it to an attractive, God-honouring, safe, and tidy state for the congregation and public to enjoy. We would ask for your continued patience with our clergy, Chapter, and the contractors over these next weeks as the work is completed. Thank you!

Pre-Advent Catechesis Classes: Over five consecutive Wednesday evenings, we will be running a discussion-based teaching series on the Church of England’s ‘Five Marks of Mission’. These hour-long ‘catechesis’ sessions will begin on Wednesday 5 November at 7.30pm with the topic of ‘Acts of Charity & Service’. All are welcome!

‘Barnes 500’ Events: Over the course of Michaelmas, the church and St Edward’s Institute for Christian Thought are running several events linked to commemorating, and critically reflecting on, the 500th anniversary of Robert Barnes’ 1525 Christmas Eve Midnight Mass sermon, which arguably sparked the English Reformation. A termcard listing these various events can be found on the table by the main west door of the church or here. Our next event will be an ecumenical evensong in partnership with Fisher House Catholic Chaplaincy held in St Edward’s church at 4pm on Sunday 16 November.

Scriptorium has restarted in the church for Michaelmas Term 2025. This is a loosely structured time, bookended by prayer, of independent study for postgraduates, meeting 9am-4.30pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays weekly during University term-time. For more information, see here.

Giving: We are grateful for all of your gifts! Offerings may be made via BACS (Sort: 20-17-19 / Acc. No.: 30851477 / Acc. Name: St Edwards Church), for standing orders, or the SumUp machine on the table by the door, for contactless giving. There is also a wall-mounted deposit box by the door for cash and/or cheques.

Exciting Holiness (Friday 31 October):

Martin Luther was born in 1483 at Eisleben in Saxony and educated at the cathedral school in Magdeburg and the university in Erfurt. He joined an order of Augustinian Hermits there and was ordained priest in 1507, becoming a lecturer in the university at Wittenberg. He became vicar of his Order in 1515, having charge of a dozen monasteries. His Christian faith began to take on a new shape, with his increasing dissatisfaction with the worship and order of the Church. He became convinced that the gospels taught that humanity is saved by faith and not by works, finding support in the writings of Augustine of Hippo. He refuted the teaching of the Letter of James, calling it ‘an epistle of straw’. Martin sought to debate the whole matter by posting ninety-five theses or propositions on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on this day in the year 1517. The hierarchy chose to see it as a direct attack on the Church, which forced Martin into open rebellion. The Protestant Reformation spread throughout Germany and then Europe, many seeing it as liberation from a Church that held them in fear rather than love. Martin Luther died in 1546, having effected a renaissance in the Church, both Protestant and Catholic.

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: help us so to hear them, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and for ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.