Events

Events during the Christmas 2023.

Winter Party on Friday evening 1st December: Allen & Margaret Stevens have very kindly offered to host this social occasion for the parish. Tickets are available after Mass this weekend. For more information, or for any donations you would like to make, please contact Margaret Stevens.

Three churches Carols for Christmas: The annual ecumenical carol singing programme this year begins on Thursday December 7th at 6:30 p.m. The churches will be carol singing on Abbey Green the newest of the West Eynsham developments, just past the Evenlode. We meet at 6:30 right at the entrance to the estate, which is accessed from Old Witney Road.
Then on Sunday 10th December at 4pm in the Village Square. All Welcome.

DATES for coming events in 2024.

    • Parish Lenten Pilgrimage Walk to St James the Great at South Leigh – Friday Morning March 1st. (Full details nearer the date)
    • Parish Harvington Hall Visit – May 17th Depart by coach from St Peter’s in the morning (Full details nearer the date).
    • Eynsham Abbey Singers: Informal Concert at St. Peter’s – Wednesday 20th March.

Confirmation Sunday 23rd September 2023.

 

Easter Vigil Celebration – April 2023.

ST PETER’S PILGRIMAGE – 29 July 2022.

Fourteen pilgrims set out from St Peter’s Eynsham on Friday 29 July 2022 after a blessing and singing To be a pilgrim. Following in the footsteps of our forebears, we walked via Wytham to the holy well at Binsey and St Margaret’s church. At All Saints Wytham we said a decade of the Rosary, and made the ancient stones ring with the chant of Salve Regina.

At the holy well we sang O living water as we remembered the waters of our baptism.

In St Margaret’s Binsey Fr Mark said Mass, probably for the first time in this church since the reformation. And the building seemed to rejoice to hear again the plainsong Sanctus and Agnus Dei.

Finally we had a well earned pub lunch in The Fishes, Hinksey. We hope to repeat the pilgrimage next year so that others may join us.

Easter at St Peter’s, 14-17 April 2022.

After Easter Vigil.

Altar of Repose, Maundy Thursday.

CAFOD LENT SOUP LUNCH – Friday 25th March 12.30 – 2.00pm in the Tolkien Room. ALL WELCOME. Minimum donation is £3 but larger donations will be gratefully received.  Thank you for your support.

The Remembrance Sunday, 14th November 2021.

Happy Pentecost 2021.

Easter 2021.

Christmas decoration in St Peter’s Church, 2020.



Year 2020 Events.

The Christian Aid Week starts this weekend, i.e. on the 9th of May.  And to support it, please follow this two links to various ways of donating to Christian Aid, and also to an online service which includes daily prayers for Christian Aid Week itself:
i) to a virtual Christian Aid Week envelope,
ii) to a daily prayers and service.

Pancake Fest on Saturday 22nd February from 10.30am-1.30pm in the Tolkien Room. Come and enjoy our waitress served sweet and savoury pancakes. If anyone
can help on the day would they please let Jenny Murray know, there will also be a raffle and cake stall and any donations to these will be gratefully received. £477 was collected for the Church Fund. Thank you, Jenny.

Year 2019 Events.

NEW YEARS DAY PARTY is on Wednesday 1st January in the Tolkien Room at 10.45am. Coffee/Tea and cakes. It will follow the New Years Day Mass at 10am but you do not have to come to Mass to come to the Party!

Canonisation of Cardinal John Henry Newman: 13th October. To prepare for this joyful occasion there will be a Newman Night Walk on Tuesday 8th October 7pm starting at the Oxford Oratory, with candle-light procession, and  concluding with Benediction at 9.50pm. Please see notice board for full details. On Saturday 12th October at the end of Mass a picture of Cardinal Newman will be blessed and placed by the Sacred Heart statue. For more information about John Newman please refer to     Wikipedia and also to Newman’s College in Littlemore Oxford.

First Holy Communion Day on Sunday 30th June . This was a joyful day for the whole of the parish, the community of faith. We assure the children of our prayers for them as they continue their journey of faith nourished by Christ’s Body & Blood.

The HOLY WEEK which began on PALM SUNDAY on the 14th April this year

A CONCERT OF SACRED SONGS FOR SPRINGTIME on Saturday 23rd March performed after the evening Mass, by our very own Nicholas Clapton (Counter-Tenor) accompanied by Richard Briggs. A collection after the concert  raised £400 for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

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Year 2018 Events.

Father MARTIN and his wife FRANCES were celebrating their Golden Wedding with a special Mass on Saturday 25th August followed a Bring and Share Buffet Lunch. There were no presents or flowers but donations to the charity Aid To The Church In Need – in total £1200 was raised. They would like to thank everyone for their generosity, and are so glad in this way to have helped the Christians of Syria return to their homes and churches and begin to rebuild them. It was pointed out at their Golden Wedding that Christians have been in Damascus and other cities of Syria since the very beginnings of the Church in the AD30’s.

ST PETER’S WON THE PRIZE for the best Business Front at the Eynsham Front Gardens Competition earlier this year. Thanks to those who mow the grass and use the trimmer in the Graveyard that helps make everything look so good.

Parish BBQ, Sunday 22nd July. This was a wonderful parish social occasion and we were blessed with fine weather and wonderfully cooked BBQ meals. We have collected £750 for the Church funds.

Eynsham Open Gardens Weekend on Saturday & Sunday 9/10th June. How lovely to welcome so many visitors to St. Peter’s during the weekend and being so blessed with the summer sunshine. This was a great chance to see the changes Father Mark has made including his addition of some water features and lots of tinkling chimes. Thank you To Eve and her willing recruits for looking after refreshments: Total Raised (cakes & beverages) for church funds £150.

On Sunday 3rd June our Archbishop the Most Reverend Bernard Longley was visiting us and during the mass we witness the Confirmation of some of our young people.

We had an Episcopal Visitation on Sunday 18th February as part of The North Oxfordshire Deanery Visitation. Bishop William Kenney came to St. Peter’s, where he celebrated the Holy Mass and met parishioners afterwards. There will be an opening and closing ceremony with Archbishop Bernard (dates/venue to be Confirmed) to which everyone is welcome.

St Peter’s Pancake Feast, which was an ever popular event for all sorts of people who do not necessarily attend St Peter’s. It was on Saturday 10th February.

Congratulations! Raymond & Revel Elliot received a blessing at the end of Mass on Sunday 7th January, for their 50th Wedding anniversary – many friends & fellow-parishioners did join them in The Tolkien Room afterwards.

PAST EVENTS

The Summer Barbecue was organised traditionally after the Sunday Mass on the 23rd July 2017 – this was our happy annual event allowing also to collect money for the church fund. And the sun was shining.

First Holy Communion Day: 2nd July 2017 – a joyful day for the whole parish.

Vivaldi ‘Stabat Mater’ concert performed by Nick Clapton and Richard Briggs on Saturday 25th March 2017, after the 5pm Mass.

Pancake Feast on 24th February 2017.  Thank you to the ladies (and to the many other helpers) of the parish for hosting the annual Pancake Feast. It was lovely to see so many parishioners and visitors coming together for this social occasion. A wonderful day! We have collected £430 for the Church funds.

Fr Mark Lagorio was inducted officially as the Parish Priest during the Sunday Mass on the 11th September 2016.

Father Martin’s last Sunday Mass as the Parish Priest in charge was celebrated on the 8th May 2016. 

OUR PANCAKE FEAST 2016 was once again a very happy occassion when we welcomed many visitors and raised £600 for Church Funds

As in the previous year, we continue our weekly Bible Share sessions every Wednesday at 10.30am in the Tolkien Room.

OUR SUMMER FETE and BBQ (2015) on June 21st was a very happy occasion that also raised money for the Church Funds (£902.87 in total). It began straight after our Sunday Morning Mass, as it has done every year for many years now.

ON PALM SUNDAY (2014) on the April 13th, we had our usual Outdoor Procession with Palm Branches, which was to symbolize the Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The Mass that follows included dramatised reading from the Bible of the whole of the Holy Week story.    

THE CELEBRATION OF THE EASTER VIGIL (2013) by Bishop William was a very happy end to these three great days, and was followed by a bit of a party with Wine and Easter Eggs in a very full Tolkien Room.  As ever some people found it disconcerting having to stumble around in the dark at the beginning of the Liturgy, but as Father Martin explained, that expressed what life is like without God, without the risen Christ. 

THE REBURIAL of the EYNSHAM ABBEY BODIES took place on the Saturday 23rd June 2012. The information about this event with interview with Fr Martin Flatman was published by the Oxford Mail on the 22nd of June, please see also our June Newsletter. Eynsham Online also published a great report from the event. The Requiem Mass was celebrated by the Most Revd. Bernard Longley the Archbishop of Birmingham.

THE EYNSHAM ABBEY ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE TRAIL was opened on the Wednesday 30th March 2011. Mr Alan Hardy from The Oxford Archaeological Unit who led the Dig 20 years ago, officially open the trail. The children, all from Year Five of the Eynsham Community Primary School, and a number of guests, witnessed the opening. Following the ceremony, the children helped show people the various locations on the site, showing that they were well prepared at school for this event. One can walk the site and find out from the Plaques and the Leaflet where the two Abbeys were and can imagine the size and complexity of the buildings. The Leaflet is available inside the Church.

The Eynsham Abbey Bones (2011). The bones from 9 bodies that were dug up during the Dig by Oxford Archaeology 20 years ago were examined by Dr Simon Underdown, a Biological Anthropologist from Oxford Brookes University. These bones were in the Oxfordshire Museum Store in Standlake who had asked for this to be done before they were re-buried. Father Martin was present at the beginning of this examination and was able to assure himself that these people’s remains were being handled reverently. They were then re-buried in our Graveyard as described above and a Headstone has been placed to mark the grave.