The Old Catholic Apostolic Church

The Old Catholic Apostolic Church Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from The Old Catholic Apostolic Church, Doncaster.

08/04/2026

I learned these words of John Henry Newman as a child ‘The night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on. Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene: one step enough for me.’
To have such peace and confidence – wonderful. But I am always, and I think always into the future, the one who wants to see more, know more. A restless soul – but in that same classroom I also learned Gerald Manley Hopkins ‘ poem ‘Pied Beauty’ in which he praises the diversity of creation,. The poem ends ‘Praise him’, so among that huge variety it seems there is room for me too – the questioner, the peeker around corners. The child of God. Praise him.

30/01/2026

Jesus was not the only rabbi going around Israel in the first century. There were several including a certain Rabbi Eleazer.
One day, in debate, he could not convince his disciples of a point. He even created a miracle, but they just responded that miracles were not part of debate. Then he said ‘I will have to appeal to heaven.
Soon enough all heard the celestial voice. ‘Why aren’t you agreeing with Rabbi Eleazer. He is right.’
This however was disregarded , as in debate the majority view was judged to be correct.
How often we ignore the voice of God and of reason – why? Perhaps because we don’t want to be proved wrong. Or maybe it is because if we do listen then something is going to have to change – our attitude, our response to others, our response to God.
Johnathon Pye describes God as unchanging and ‘yet in all ways our transformation.’ He goes on, ‘So that the world may be transformed by our sharing of your love.’
Albert Orsborn’s hymns don’t get heard much these days , but they should be. He wrote ‘Give me the strength of faith that dares to die of self each day. That bravely takes the cross, nor cares to find an easier way.’

04/11/2025

Based upon a Mexican prayer :- I am only a spark, make me a fire.
I am only a string, make me a lyre.
I am only a drop, make me a fountain,
I am only an anthill, make me a mountain.
I am only a feather, make me a wing.
I am only one note, make me a song.

26/10/2025

Tsunami was a word I hadn’t even heard of a few years ago although it is a word included in the OED since 1896. In my memory though it happened in 2011 and so far away.
Today’s news though is a little nearer home - a Norwegian mountain is on the move – 2.5 metres in two weeks. It may not sound so bad, but then they go on to say the whole mountain may split and land in the sea- and so produce a 40 foot high wave. When? They don’t know, but a guess is in about 200 years. As we are barely a few feet above sea level here, even though we are 40 miles inland, perhaps we should buy a house in Holmfirth – much higher up?
Common sense though tells me that we cannot prepare for every possible possibility. We have to take life as it comes. We don’t have a choice other than to do our best. We are just too small.
From Michel Quoist:-
He had been looking at a rock on the old road which leads to a village:- Who am I, who pass so quickly, compared to the stone which endures. It has borne the weight of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, and I am only one step among a million other steps, steps that have vanished.
…but I see this hard stone which endures – to remind me of my smallness.
And then he prays ‘Oh tell me Lord, in front of this hard enduring stone which troubles me… I need to hear you repeating that you love me, as you have said that you love me despite my smallness.
God tells him to listen… Your life is so precious to me that I offer you mine. If you welcome my life into yours, then your footsteps, your words, your gestures and your smiles will vanquish death and passing through the gateway of time they will emerge in my eternity. Go in peace. I tell you that I love you.

21/10/2025

I remember rare days off in the past. I would go to the local coach station and buy a ticket for whichever coach was leaving next. It proved to be a great way of seeing places I would never think of going.
This morning I dreamt I was in a railway station. I’d tried the bus station, but couldn’t recognise any of the names on the destination boards. So I went to the station to buy a ticket. Only I couldn’t find the ticket office. There wasn’t one. Someone explained that you have to book several weeks ahead on your phone. But I wanted to go today.
It is as if modern life is becoming somewhere where you have to know all the tricks – but everyone else knows what you don’t. You have become a stranger.
Church can be like that to the uninitiated – everyone else knows when to stand, when to sit, when to join in, and when to just listen. They know the words of the prayers, the creed and all the rest.
I remember going to a church in a land where I was a visitor- II had arrived just the night before and had no local language except ‘Thank you.’ But I went to church. It was a bit strange, but we were made very welcome. We took our cues from the lady who had greeted us- we sat behind her, and when she stood, we stood, when she sat we sat. We still didn’t understand the majority of what was going on, but it was a start.
Look out for the strangers. If you don’t they probably will not come again.
Lord, wherever we worship and however, may your light shine through all.

10/10/2025

The Dali View
Someone wanted me today to commit myself in the argument for calling God Father or Mother. My response was that both as represented in the Old Testament, although given that it seems to have been written entirely by men, it is no surprise which predominate. But whichever way you address God it relates to only part of who he is – the powerful king, the mother caring for a baby ( Isaiah 66 v 13) or as in Ruth 2 v 12 where Boaz describes God as Most High but also the one whose wings Ruth has come to shelter under.
Many years ago I lived in Whitechapel where there still stands the Whitechapel Gallery. I only ever went in once – an exhibit by Surrealist Salvador Dali. It wasn’t exactly your usual exhibition. The paintings were really tiny, but more than that you looked at them through crystals placed to cover them in their entirety. Faceted crystals. This meant you could look straight ahead and see so much, but also look from one side or the other, or even from below or above, and you got a slightly different view. There was no one way of looking that meant you saw the whole.
If any analogy works at all this one works for my view of God. I don’t see the whole all at once, but I do see something.

05/10/2025

I Turned Down a Jacaranda
I was just offered a jacaranda tree for free- and I didn’t take it. For those who don’t know it is one of the most beautiful trees in the world, but large, huge and spreading – a tree for fancy public parks.
When we were first married we lived in Jhelum in the Punjab, and just before sunset we would climb up to the roof in order to see the sun hit the Himalayas in the distance, but much nearer, only feet away was a jacaranda and we would look down through its branches.
Some years later we were at the former home of Madame Pompadour where there was a garden sale and John bought me just one jacaranda seed. Quite large. At the time we had a minute garden. Nowadays a larger one, but still too small for this huge beauty. It has lived in our fridge as a memory ever since.
There are many things it would be nice to have, but they just don’t fit easily into our lives. But the largest of all – God – somehow fits in wherever and whoever we are.
I’m told that if all the dna in our body was stretched out in one piece it would be twice the diameter of the whole solar system – just in one person. And God fits in.
This is God’s body, and we will serve God in it.

21/09/2025

The Church and the World
Someone today posted that she thought she needed a church which didn’t listen to the world, but only to the scriptures.
My immediate reaction was to think of Romans 12 v 1,2, especially in the J.B. Phillips’s translation :-
With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity. ( Romans 12 v 1,2, - J.B. Phillips.)
So, don’t let the world make you think and act as so many do – but that doesn’t mean cut yourself off from it. Doesn’t mean you don’t care. I’ve just watched an old film about Aberfan and the disaster that befell it in 1966 when a mountain of coal waste moved and engulfed both the primary school and several houses. 144 people died. 116 of them were young children. A whole generation wiped out. People responded in all sorts of ways – from a man digging using his miner’s helmet, to the prime minister declaring a national enquiry. There was weeping, but also anger. A felt need for revenge on those to blame, if anyone was.
I was moved to see members of the Salvation Army checking each body for any means of identification. They were all laid out in one giant mortuary, dozens and dozens, each wrapped up. The parents would have had to endure looking down on so many faces before they found the one that belonged to them. Because of the actions of the Salvationists this at least was cut to a minimum. They were Christians, consecrated to God, but so caring of those around them.
We need a church which does listen to the world, which does respond – yet one which at the same time remains true to the Christ they serve.

14/09/2025

The Shadow of the Dove
As so often the best writing is so often anonymous, as is this Celtic prayer, but it is a plea we can all share.
When dawn’s ribbon of glory around the world returns and the earth emerges from sleep, may the shadow of the Dove be seen as she flies across moor and city.
Over the warm breast of the earth she skims, her shadow falling on the watcher in the tower, the refugee in the ditch, the weary soldier at the gate.
May the shadow of peace fall across the all-night sitting of a council, across the tense negotiators across a table.
May the shadow of hope be cast across the bars of a hostage cell, filling with momentary light rooms tense with conflict, bringing a brief respite, a sliver of gold across the dark.
May she fly untiring across flooded fields, across a city divided by hate and by fear, across a town wreathed in smoke.
May the shadow of reconciliation, the Dove of peace, with healing in her wings, be felt and seen and turned towards as she makes righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of her cause like the noonday sun.
Holy Spirit of love, bring healing, bring peace.

03/09/2025

My First Nation New Testament is open at Matthew 7 and these wonderful words - v 7 Let your prayers rise like smoke to the Great Spirit , for He will see and answer you. Every step is a prayer, and as you dance upon the arth for the things tha tyou seek, the way will open before you.

03/09/2025

What did Pope Leo unleash whne he said his first mass in Latin? I've just seen a report where someone claims their life has been saved by saying the mass in Latin.

12/08/2025

Tied to Her Chair
It is that time of year, in between the end of school or college for the summer and new beginnings as the academic year starts up once more. This is when huge Christian youth rallies are planned, when people travel great distances to attend. There is one going on right now, across the sea in the Netherlands.
I remember going to one in East London in the long ago. I got there just as it was about to begin and slipped into the nearest available seat. The girl I sat next to was someone I knew a little, so I said ‘Hello’. She just looked down. So I did the same and was astonished to see that she had tied herself to her chair using the very long strap on her bag and a belt.
‘What’s all that? Why are you doing that?’
‘Because there will be an appeal and no way am I going forward.’
‘So why did you come?’
No answer.
There was an appeal, of course there was. An appeal to make a new beginning, perhaps even to offer oneself for full time service.
And guess who was first on her feet and down the aisle.
So why did she attend? Perhaps because the call of God on her life was so strong she had to test it?
I haven’t seen her since that day, but have often prayed for her.
As she went down the aisle her straps and bonds followed her, and she tripped before eventually she was free.
As you struggle with whatever binds you, whatever prevents you from making the commitment you need to before God :-
May you trip over truth, and fall headlong into hope.
May redemption rain down all around you.
May God’s glory catch you napping and God’s story catch your breath.
May you always know where the road home begins – and have the courage to walk that first mile.
May the struggles you meet make you stronger, and may the darkness which seems to engulf you be the moment before a new dawn. ( adapted from words by Gerard Kelly.)

Address

Doncaster

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Old Catholic Apostolic Church posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share