Chaplaincy  Notices - 29th January 2012

4th Sunday of the Year

Readings:   Deuteronomy 18:15-20   Corinthians 7:32-35   Mark 1:21-28

Missal pp. 591ff

SATURDAY: PIZZA & FILM, THE LIVES OF OTHERS
What is achieved by the living of a good life? A grey, fearful, conformist  Stasi agent in Communist East Germany, keeps a loyalist, but bohemian, play-write under surveillance. The result is a story both beautiful and tragic; a story of redemption. This Oscar-winning thriller won the accolade from one newspaper, “the best film of the year”. It’ll knock your socks off. Pizza, similar. Pizza 7pm & Film 8pm.

WEDNESDAY 7PM: ST JOHN’S COLLEGE MASS (CHURCH OF ST MARY THE LESS)
We have lots of John’s students at the chaplaincy, and the college has a wonderful chapel in the Norman church of St Mary the Less.
St John’s College was founded as an Anglican theological college and Cranmer Hall continues to perform this function. So Cranmer, who he?
The King’s Great Matter -his desire for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon- precipitated the demise of two Lord Chancellor’s, Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas More. Thomas Cranmer, by contrast, had a good divorce. A scholar in the patronage of Cardinal Wolsey, he rose to prominence by suggesting that the opinion of Europe’s universities be canvassed. Though, the strategy itself was not successful, it won Cranmer Henry’s favour and catapulted his career: by 1532 he was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury.
Cranmer’s legacy and his real genius, lay not in appeasing his despotic king, but in his prose and his construction of the liturgical forms of the new protestant Church of England. He combined offices, and translated prayers and collects to produce the Book of Common Prayer. This remains a magisterial and much envied achievement.
Under Mary, Cranmer eventually recanted all the Protestant positions he had held, even declaring his joy at returning to the Catholic faith. Mary’s regime, however, was ruthlessly doctrinaire and did not countenance a reprieve. Cranmer renounced his recantations, and dramatically plunged the hand with which he had signed them into the fire of his execution.

100 THINGS TO SEE #24 WHAT LIES BENEATH: SIGNS OF ELVET COLLIERY
Last week I noted that there were once eight pits in Durham. One was Elvet Colliery which occupied the site on which the University Library now stands. The pit was sunk in 1828 as a land sale colliery, that is, it wasn’t shipped elsewhere, but was to provide coal for Durham residents for domestic use and for the production of coal gas. By 1834 mining subsidence meant that St Oswald’s church had to be extensively restored by the architect Ignatius Bonomi, who, seven years earlier, had built St Cuthbert’s. The colliery continued to operate until 1908 when compensation payments to subsidence damaged properties became unsustainable.
Anchorage Terrace was built as Pit Row to house miners at the colliery. The renaming is a telling indication of Durham’s preference to leap-frog its industrial past and highlight its medieval heritage. At some point a hermit or anchorite lived here, connected to the church, but nothing is known of his or her identity.

TUESDAY 9PM SURSUM CORDA PRAYER GROUP
Lift up your hearts to the Lord! An hour of praise, scripture and adoration in the Parish Room

WEDNESDAY:  ROSARY 6:30PM
will be said before Mass with the special intention for the recovery of Molly.

FRIDAY:  SOUP LUNCH
following the 12.15pm Mass, all welcome.  Donations in aid of our twin parish in Belpahar and CAFOD.

CATHOLIC PARLIAMENTARY INTERNSHIPS 2012-13
Please remember to pick up the information from the notice board.  The closing date for applications is 5 pm Wednesday 29th February 2012.