Mark Oakley – författare

Readings for Weddings is an inspirational collection of Bible quotations, poems, hymns and prose for secular weddings, church ceremonies and services of blessing. Mark Oakley includes such 'wedding classics' as 1 Corinthians 13 and Khalil Gibran's The Prophet, the poetry of Shelley and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, verse by Wendy Cope and other witty, contemporary poets.'I have tested Mark Oakley's Readings for Weddings with a number of couples I have been preparing for marriage over the last few years. They have been universally grateful for such a rich and varied quarry from which they have been able, in every case, to extract something which was highly appropriate but which would otherwise never have been discovered.' Richard Chartres, Bishop of London

Readings for Funerals is a perceptive collection of Bible quotations, poems, hymns and prose, offering consolation and comfort to those bereaved. It helps them to express their thoughts and feelings and make them more confident in planning a funeral service and dealing with clergy.Featuring the writing of, amongst others, W. H. Auden, Simon Armitage, Wendy Cope, T. S. Eliot and Joyce Grenfell, it is suitable for use at secular funerals, celebrations of a life and church services.This book follows the style of the highly successful Readings for Weddings which has sold over 7,000 copies.

How can we enter fruitfully into the seasons of the Church's year? Why have the seasons become shaped as they have and what can we do to make them good?As Mark Oakley explains in the hugely enjoyable, earthy and wide-ranging introduction to this exceptional volume, we can experience them in stimulating company! Here are reflections by the most senior pastors and teachers in the Church today:SARAH MULLALLY, Bishop of Crediton, on A Good Advent, a season 'pregnant with hope', when our waiting is anything but inactive.ROWAN WILLIAMS, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, on A Good Christmas, and the overwhelming surprise of 'a God who values our humanity beyond all imagining'.LIBBY LANE, Bishop of Stockport, on A Good Epiphany, when through discomfort 'we begin to discover at first hand the hospitality of God'.JUSTIN WELBY, Archbishop of Canterbury, on A Good Lent, 'which takes hold of human sinfulness and, in an extraordinary way, makes space for the hope of Christ'.STEPHEN COTTRELL, Bishop of Chelmsford, on A Good Holy Week, when we 'revel in the sensuous and very hands-on re-enactment of liturgical drama'.STEPHEN CONWAY, Bishop of Ely, on A Good Easter, which is 'life lived shot through with grace and glory'.KAREN GORHAM, Bishop of Sherborne, on A Good Pentecost, when our life's journey 'brings us encounters, challenges and opportunities we can rise to, equipped by the Spirit of God'.

George Herbert is one of the great 17th century poet-priests. His poems embrace every shade of the spiritual life, from love and closeness, to anger and despair, to reconciliation and hope. And his work is always rich with audacious playfulness: he seems to take God on, knowing God will win, as if he's having an argument with a faithful friend he knows is not going to leave. In much of theology and spirituality, God is a critical spectator to human lives, but for Herbert, his sense of relationship with God is primarily of a friendship that can never be broken. These are some of the themes Mark Oakley explores in this outstanding book. He offers a poem for every day in Lent, with a 2-page commentary on each of the 40 included.

Reflections on the Psalms provides insightful commentary on each of the Psalms from the same experienced team of writers that have made Reflections for Daily Prayer so popular. It offers inspiring and undated reflections on all 150 psalms, with longer psalms split into parts in accordance with the Lectionary. Each reflection is accompanied by its corresponding Psalm refrain and prayer from the Common Worship Psalter, making this a valuable resource for personal or devotional use. Specially written introductions by Paula Gooder and Steven Croft explore the Psalms and the Bible and the Psalms in the life of the Church.

Reflections for Daily Prayer has nourished thousands of Christians for a decade with its inspiring and informed weekday Bible reflections. Now, in response to demand, Reflections for Sundays combines material from over the years with new writing to provide high-quality reflections on the Principal Readings for Sundays and major Holy Days.Contributors include some of the very best writers from across the Anglican tradition who have helped to establish it as one of the leading daily devotional volumes today. For each Sunday and major Holy Day in Year A, Reflections for Sundays offers:• full lectionary details for the Principle Service • a reflection on the Old Testament reading• a reflection on the Epistle• a reflection on the Gospel It also contains a substantial introduction to the Gospel of Matthew, written by renowned Bible teacher Paula Gooder.

Reflections for Daily Prayer has nourished thousands of Christians for a decade with its inspiring and informed weekday Bible reflections. Now, in response to demand, Reflections for Sundays combines material from over the years with new writing to provide high-quality reflections on the Principal Readings for Sundays and major Holy Days.Contributors include some of the very best writers from across the Anglican tradition who have helped to establish it as one of the leading daily devotional volumes today. For each Sunday and major Holy Day in Year C, Reflections for Sundays offers:• full lectionary details for the Principle Service • a reflection on the Old Testament reading• a reflection on the Epistle• a reflection on the Gospel It also contains a substantial introduction to the Gospel of Luke, written by renowned Bible teacher Paula Gooder.

Mark Oakley is one of the church’s most outstanding communicators. His writing and preaching alike are shaped by a sense that language is sacramental, and he has a poet’s gift of opening up new worlds and new possibilities simply through words. In a series of fifty beautifully crafted reflections, with characteristic wit, Mark traverses the landscape of the Christian year, with its oases of celebration, its desert stretches of emptiness, its days of abundance and seasons of lament, and its affirmation of the ordinary and the everyday.Rooted in the scriptures that the Church reads through the year, this volume is pure gift for preachers and all who are charged with interpreting these sacred stories in today’s world. For all who wish to understand their own story in the light of God’s bigger story, this will be a book to turn to again and again.

Mark Oakley is one of the church’s most outstanding communicators. In this series of fifty beautifully crafted reflections, with characteristic wit, he traverses the landscape of the Christian year. His writing is shaped by a sense that language is sacramental, with a poet’s gift of opening up new worlds and new possibilities simply through words.

Each year, the Holy Week and Easter double issue of the Church Times offers a wealth of seasonal reading and resources for worship and preaching. This volume, like its companion Christmas collection, draws together outstanding features from the past twenty years. It includes:* Meditations on the Stations of the Cross by the poet David Scott;* A short story set in Gethsemane by David Hart;* Timothy Radcliffe on the alternative to conflict symbolised by the Last Supper;* Sam Wells on Pilate and what he - and we - could do differently;* Richard Harries on the art of Good Friday;* Peter Stanford on Judas;* Michael Perham on why Easter celebrations should start in the dark;* Stephen Cleobury on the carols of Easter;* Mark Oakley on the poetry of the cross;* Paula Gooder on why the resurrection is central to faith;* Reflections on the season's lectionary readings, and much besides.In life Jesus had 'nowhere to lay his head' and in death was laid in a borrowed tomb. Mindful of this, all royalties from this book will go to the Church Homeless Trust.

While training for the priesthood, a stint with a hospital chaplaincy team brought Mark face to face with a depth of suffering that blew his young, confident faith apart. Years later he was still picking up the pieces, but they began to show an entirely different picture of where and how God could be found. The Collage of God is for all who find it difficult to reconcile the realities of life with easy and comfortable notions about faith. In imaginative and beautiful language, and illuminated by many quotes from modern writers and poets, Mark Oakley reconstructs faith as a collage of traditions and texts, the myriad experiences of living, imagination, silence and prayer by which we respond to the grace of God revealed in fragile lives. A contemporary spiritual classic.

Whether you love poetry or haven't read it since school, The Splash of Words will help you rediscover poetry’s power to startle, challenge and reframe your vision. Like throwing a pebble into water, a poem causes a ‘splash of words’ whose ripples can transform the way we see the world, ourselves and God. Through thirty selected poems, from the fourteenth century to the present day, Mark Oakley explores poetry’s power to stir our settled ways of viewing the world and faith, shift our perceptions and even transform who we are.