Daily Offering · 5 October 2026 · Feria
Daily Offering: October 5, 2026 | Rejoice In Their Fellowship
Welcome to Bloom’s Daily Offering for Monday, October 5, 2026. Today is a feria of the fourth class, the Monday after the XIX Sunday after Pentecost, with a commemoration of St. Placid and his Companions, Martyrs. Nothing is displaced. The Mass of the day…
The order of this offering
Before the readings
The Word
Offering and Canon
I
Opening Address
Welcome to Bloom’s Daily Offering for Monday, October 5, 2026. Today is a feria of the fourth class, the Monday after the XIX Sunday after Pentecost, with a commemoration of St. Placid and his Companions, Martyrs. Nothing is displaced. The Mass of the day is yesterday’s Mass, said again on a weekday, and what is new today is the commemoration, whose first prayer asks God for something smaller and warmer than you might expect from a commemoration of martyrs: that we may enjoy their fellowship.
I want to stay with that single petition this morning, because it is the centre of what the Church asks on these saints’ day, and because of what it leaves out. It does not ask that we be made brave like them, or spared what they were not spared. It asks that we may enjoy their fellowship, and that is all.
Wherever you are this morning, you are welcome here. If you have ever sat in a church and felt that the saints were a club you would never be asked to join, today’s prayer was written with you in the room.
II
A Word on Today’s Propers
This is a ferial continuation, which is simply how the calendar works. The Sunday Mass is said again through the week until a higher feast interrupts it, without the Gloria or the Creed, and the feria’s own Collect stands first with the saint commemorated after it. So the Introit, the Collect, the Epistle, the Gradual, the Gospel, the Offertory, the Secret, the Communion and the Postcommunion are those of the XIX Sunday after Pentecost, word for word as we prayed them on Sunday.
We opened these same propers at length last October, and again yesterday. Rather than walk the parable of the marriage feast a third time, I am going to turn this morning to the commemoration, whose three short prayers are the only texts in today’s Mass that were not prayed on Sunday, and to the first of its requests, that we may enjoy their fellowship. Every proper is still here in full, because someone praying along should never have to go looking for the words.
III
Introit
I am the salvation of the people, saith the Lord: in whatever tribulation they shall cry to me, I will hear them: and I will be their Lord for ever.
Ps 77:1 Attend, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
I am the salvation of the people, saith the Lord: in whatever tribulation they shall cry to me, I will hear them: and I will be their Lord for ever.
IV
Collect
Almighty and merciful God, graciously keep away from us all misfortune, that, unhampered in soul and body, we may perform with peaceful minds the works that are Thine. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
V
The Commemoration
Commemoration of St. Placid and his Companions, Martyrs
O God, Who dost permit us to keep the birthday of Thy holy Martyrs Placid and his Companions, grant that we may enjoy their fellowship in everlasting happiness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
This oration comes from the Common of Many Martyrs, where it is written with blanks for the names of whichever martyrs the day holds. The same prayer was said in July over St. Symphorosa and her seven sons. Today the blanks are filled with Placid and his Companions, and the request to enjoy their fellowship is made over them.
VI
Epistle
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind: And put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.
Wherefore putting away lying, speak ye the truth every man with his neighbour; for we are members one of another.
Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Give not place to the devil.
He that stole, let him now steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have something to give to him that suffereth need.
(The same lesson was read in full on Sunday.)
VII
Gradual
Ps 140:2
Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight, O Lord.
℣. The lifting up of my hands, as evening sacrifice.
Ps 104:1
Alleluia, alleluia. ℣. Give glory to the Lord, and call upon his name: declare his deeds among the Gentiles. Alleluia.
(Sung with the same verses on Sunday.)
VIII
Gospel
And Jesus answering, spoke again in parables to them, saying: The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son.
And he sent his servants, to call them that were invited to the marriage; and they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying: Tell them that were invited, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my calves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come ye to the marriage.
But they neglected, and went their own ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. But when the king had heard of it, he was angry, and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city.
Then he saith to his servants: The marriage indeed is ready; but they that were invited were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways; and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage. And his servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good: and the marriage was filled with guests.
And the king went in to see the guests: and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment. And he saith to him: Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? But he was silent.
Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.
(The same Gospel was read in full on Sunday.)
The Offering
Daily Homily | Rejoice In Their Fellowship
I want to start where a lot of people actually sit on a day like this one, which is at the back.
A room you cannot picture yourself in
I want to start where a lot of people actually sit on a day like this one, which is at the back.
You can read a list of martyrs and believe every word of it. You can believe they were real, and braver than you have ever had to be, and still find that something in you quietly refuses to put you in the same sentence as them. It is not guilt, exactly. It is closer to a question of membership: they are over there, you are back here, and the distance does not feel like something effort would close.
If that is where you are this morning, look at how little today’s prayer asks. It asks that we may enjoy their fellowship. Not that we would match them, and not that we would be tested the way they were tested and come through it. Just that we would end up glad, in their company, at the end.
A prayer to enjoy their fellowship is small enough that nobody is excluded from asking it. That is the whole petition, and I think its size is the point.
What it means to enjoy their fellowship
The Latin is plainer than the English makes it sound. Here it is, once.
English
Grant that we may enjoy their fellowship in everlasting happiness.
Latin
Da nobis in ætérna beatitúdine de eórum societáte gaudére.
In Roman law a societas was a partnership, people who had agreed to share in something together. There is nothing lofty in the word, and nothing in it is a rank or a reward. And gaudere is simply to be glad, to take joy in a thing. To enjoy their fellowship, in the Church’s own words, is to be included in a company and to be happy about it when you get there.
The communion of saints is not a hall of fame that admits people on their record. It is one body, living and dead, held together by one grace, and the Church asks to enjoy their fellowship precisely because fellowship is given rather than earned. The martyrs did not generate that grace. They received it, under worse pressure than most of us will ever meet.
Look too at what the prayer calls this day. In the Latin it is their natalitia, their birthdays. The day a martyr died is filed in the calendar as the day they were born, and the Church has been stubborn about that word for a very long time.
If the end of a life is a birth, then asking to enjoy their fellowship is not asking to join the dead. It is asking to be there when the family is finally all in one room.
Enjoy their fellowship, and nothing harder
A great deal of harm has been done by a version of holiness that works like a ladder. On that version the saints are at the top, the rest of us are somewhere on the rungs, and the honest among us can see we are not climbing fast. Test that teaching by its fruits, the way we test everything here, and the fruit is people who leave. Not usually people who stop believing, but people who conclude the room was never meant for them and stop walking toward it.
Put the commemoration next to that. The Church does not say: make them your standard and get to work. It says: grant that we may enjoy their fellowship.
The bar is gladness in company. You can be glad in company on your worst day, while you are still angry and still in the middle of whatever you are in the middle of. To enjoy their fellowship asks nothing of you that a bad year makes impossible.
Yesterday’s Gospel turns on the same point. The servants went out into the roads and gathered together all that they found, both bad and good, and the marriage was filled with guests. Whatever else that parable asks, and it asks a great deal before it ends, it does not hand out places by rank. The hall fills from the roads, and the prayer we pray today asks to enjoy their fellowship at that same table.
There is a story told of a man who went to the same church-basement recovery meeting for eleven years, and who said once that for the first three of them he could not say the word God out loud. What kept him in the chair was not the readings and not the steps. It was that when he came back after one bad stretch, nobody made him explain. Somebody poured him a coffee and moved a chair over, and he said later that he learned what the word fellowship meant in that basement long before he heard it in a church.
That is very close to what today’s prayer asks for. The people in that basement did not make him qualify to enjoy their fellowship; he only had to come back. To enjoy their fellowship is to be handed a chair by people who do not need you to have earned it.
The martyrdom that never happened
Now the honest part, because Bloom prints the history rather than the legend.
The historical Placid is well attested and rather lovely. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes him as the son of the patrician Tertullus, brought as a child to St. Benedict at Subiaco and dedicated to God there. It says it “appears certain that he accompanied St. Benedict when, about 529, he removed to Monte Cassino”. The one story everyone knows about him comes from St. Gregory’s Dialogues, where his fellow monk Maurus, at Benedict’s order, ran across the surface of the lake below the monastery and drew the drowning boy safely to shore.
What he almost certainly was not is a martyr. The same article puts it bluntly: “There seems now to be no doubt that the ‘Passio S. Placidi’, purporting to be written by one Gordianus, a servant of the saint, on the strength of which he is usually described as abbot and martyr, is really the work of Peter the Deacon, a monk of Monte Cassino in the twelfth century”.
The forger, the article explains, seems to have begun by confusing Placid with an earlier martyr named Placitus, and then gave him a death at the hands of Saracen invaders, which the article calls an utter anachronism for the sixth century. You can read the whole account in the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on St. Placidus.
Sit with what that means. Somebody in the twelfth century looked at a man given to God as a child, who lived his life in a monastery and was once pulled out of a lake, and decided that was not a big enough life. So he wrote him a death. It is the same ladder, six centuries on, doing the same damage.
And the Church kept the day anyway. Whatever was invented about how he died, nothing was invented about the fact that he belonged, and the prayer said over him never depended on the forgery. It still asks only this: that we may enjoy their fellowship.
Two companies in one prayer
Which brings me to the Companions, and to the strangest thing in today’s title.
That earlier Placitus, the same article says, was martyred in Sicily under Diocletian with Euticius and thirty companions, and the earlier martyrologies kept his feast on the fifth of October. On that account the Companions in today’s commemoration are real martyrs of a different century, whose story was folded into the story of Benedict’s disciple.
So the prayer we say this morning gathers two companies into one: a boy who was given to God and lived, and a band of martyrs who died for Him two centuries earlier, most of whose names this account does not give. The Church asks to enjoy their fellowship without separating them first.
I find that consoling rather than embarrassing. The record got tangled, as records do, and the communion of saints absorbed the tangle without complaint. If the Church can ask to enjoy their fellowship before the record is straightened out, that fellowship can hold you too, with whatever in your own story has been misfiled, misremembered or written up wrong by somebody else.
If you do not pray, and have no plan to start, there is still something here that stands on its own. You have known people whose lives were never recorded by anyone with the power to record them, or were recorded wrongly. Whatever you make of the rest of today, the refusal to let a life count for nothing because the paperwork is wrong is a decent refusal, and you can make it without believing anything in particular.
And if you do pray, pray what the Church is praying. Not that you would be found worthy of the martyrs, but that we may enjoy their fellowship. When the family is finally all in one room, the famous ones and the forgotten ones and the one at the back who could not picture themselves there, may somebody move a chair over, and may you take it.
↑ The order resumes below.
X
Offertory
℣. The Lord be with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
Ps 137:7
If I shall walk in the midst of tribulation, thou wilt quicken me: and thou hast stretched forth thy hand against the wrath of my enemies: and thy right hand hath saved me.
XI
The Offertory Prayers
The priest uncovers the chalice and offers the host on the paten.
Accept, O Holy Father, Almighty and Eternal God, this spotless host, which I, Thy unworthy servant, offer to Thee, my living and true God, to atone for my numberless sins, offences, and negligences; on behalf of all here present and likewise for all faithful Christians living and dead, that it may profit me and them as a means of salvation to life everlasting. Amen.
He pours wine into the chalice, blesses the water, and mingles a few drops with the wine.
O God, ✝ Who in creating man didst exalt his nature very wonderfully and yet more wonderfully didst establish it anew; by the mystery signified in the mingling of this water and wine, grant us to have part in the Godhead of Him Who hath deigned to become a partaker of our humanity, Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord; Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
He offers the chalice.
We offer unto Thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation, entreating Thy mercy that our offering may ascend with a sweet fragrance in the sight of Thy divine Majesty, for our own salvation, and for that of the whole world. Amen.
Bowing down, he says:
Humbled in spirit and contrite of heart, may we find favor with Thee, O Lord: and may our sacrifice be so offered this day in Thy sight as to be pleasing to Thee, O Lord God.
He raises his eyes and calls upon the Holy Ghost.
Come, Thou Sanctifier, Almighty and Everlasting God, and bless ✝ this sacrifice which is prepared for the glory of Thy holy Name.
He washes his fingers, saying from Psalm 25:
I will wash my hands among the innocent, and I will encompass Thine altar, O Lord. That I may hear the voice of praise, and tell of all Thy wondrous works. I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth.
Take not away my soul, O God, with the wicked, nor my life with men of blood. In whose hands are iniquities, their right hand is filled with gifts. But as for me, I have walked in my innocence; redeem me, and have mercy on me. My foot hath stood in the right way; in the churches I will bless Thee, O Lord.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Bowing at the middle of the altar:
Receive, O Holy Trinity, this oblation which we make to Thee in memory of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ; and in honor of blessed Mary ever Virgin, of blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, of these and of all the Saints. To them let it bring honor, and to us salvation, and may they whom we are commemorating here on earth deign to plead for us in heaven. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
He kisses the altar and turns to the people.
Pray, brethren, that my Sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God the Father Almighty.
℟. May the Lord accept the Sacrifice from thy hands, to the praise and glory of His Name, for our benefit and for that of all His holy Church.
The priest answers in a low voice: Amen.
XII
Secret
Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that these gifts which we offer in the sight of Thy majesty, may be the means of our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Commemoration of St. Placid and his Companions, Martyrs
We offer Thee, O Lord, the gifts of our service; may they be pleasing to Thee for the honor of Thy just ones and, through Thy mercy, bring us salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
XIII
Preface
℣. The Lord be with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.
℣. Lift up your hearts.
℟. We have lifted them up to the Lord.
℣. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
℟. It is right and just.
(The Common Preface.)
It is truly meet and just, and profitable unto salvation, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks to Thee, O Holy Lord, Father Almighty, eternal God, through Christ, our Lord. Through whom the Angels praise Thy Majesty, the Dominions adore it, the Powers are in awe.
Which the heavens and the hosts of heaven together with the blessed Seraphim joyfully do magnify. And do Thou command that it be permitted us to join with them in confessing Thee, while we say with lowly praise:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts. Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. Hosanna in the highest. ✝ Blessed is He Who cometh in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
XIV
The Canon
From here to the Lord’s Prayer the priest prays silently.
Most merciful Father, we humbly pray and beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ Thy Son, our Lord, to accept and to bless these ✝ gifts, these ✝ presents, these ✝ holy unspotted Sacrifices.
We offer them up to Thee, in the first place, for Thy holy Catholic Church, that it may please Thee to grant her peace, to preserve, unite, and govern her throughout the world; as also for Thy servant N. our Pope, and N. our Bishop, and for all orthodox believers and all who profess the Catholic and Apostolic faith.
For the living:
Be mindful, O Lord, of Thy servants and handmaids N. and N. and of all here present, whose faith and devotion are known to Thee, for whom we offer, or who offer up to Thee this Sacrifice of praise for themselves and all those dear to them, for the redemption of their souls and the hope of their safety and salvation: who now pay their vows to Thee, the everlasting, living and true God.
In communion with the Saints:
In communion with, and honoring the memory in the first place of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ; also of blessed Joseph, her Spouse; and likewise of Thy blessed Apostles and Martyrs, Peter and Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Thaddeus, Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian, and of all Thy Saints. Grant for the sake of their merits and prayers that in all things we may be guarded and helped by Thy protection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
He spreads his hands over the offerings.
O Lord, we beseech Thee, graciously to accept this oblation of our service and that of Thy whole household. Order our days in Thy peace, and command that we be rescued from eternal damnation and numbered in the flock of Thine elect. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Humbly we pray Thee, O God, be pleased to make this same offering wholly blessed ✝, to consecrate ✝ it and approve ✝ it, making it reasonable and acceptable, so that it may become for us the Body ✝ and Blood ✝ of Thy dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
He takes the host into his hands.
Who, the day before He suffered, took bread into His holy and venerable hands, and having lifted up His eyes to heaven, to Thee, God, His Almighty Father, giving thanks to Thee, blessed it ✝, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying: Take and eat ye all of this.
FOR THIS IS MY BODY.
He genuflects, elevates the Sacred Host, and genuflects again. Then he takes the chalice.
Taking also into His holy and venerable hands this goodly chalice, again giving thanks to Thee, He blessed it ✝, and gave it to His disciples, saying: Take and drink ye all of this.
FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL TESTAMENT: THE MYSTERY OF FAITH: WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU AND FOR MANY UNTO THE REMISSION OF SINS.
As often as ye shall do these things, ye shall do them in remembrance of Me.
He genuflects, elevates the chalice, and genuflects again.
And now, O Lord, we, Thy servants, and with us all Thy holy people, calling to mind the blessed Passion of this same Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, likewise His Resurrection from the grave, and also His glorious Ascension into heaven:
do offer unto Thy most sovereign Majesty out of the gifts Thou hast bestowed upon us a Victim ✝ which is pure, a Victim ✝ which is holy, a Victim ✝ which is spotless, the holy Bread ✝ of life eternal, and the Chalice ✝ of everlasting Salvation.
Deign to look upon them with a favorable and gracious countenance, and to accept them as Thou didst accept the offerings of Thy just servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our Patriarch Abraham, and that which Thy high priest Melchisedech offered up to Thee, a holy Sacrifice, an immaculate Victim.
He bows low over the altar.
Humbly we beseech Thee, almighty God, to command that these our offerings be carried by the hands of Thy holy Angel to Thine Altar on high, in the sight of Thy divine Majesty, so that those of us who shall receive the most sacred Body ✝ and Blood ✝ of Thy Son by partaking thereof from this Altar may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing: Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
For the dead:
Be mindful, also, O Lord, of Thy servants and handmaids N. and N. who are gone before us with the sign of faith and who sleep the sleep of peace. To these, O Lord, and to all who rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light and peace. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
Striking his breast, he says the first words aloud.
To us also Thy sinful servants, who put our trust in the multitude of Thy mercies, vouchsafe to grant some part and fellowship with Thy holy Apostles and Martyrs: with John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, and all Thy Saints. Into their company we beseech Thee admit us, not considering our merits, but freely pardoning our offenses.
Through Christ our Lord.
By whom, O Lord, Thou dost always create, sanctify ✝, quicken ✝, bless ✝, and bestow upon us all these good things.
Through Him ✝, and with Him ✝, and in Him ✝, is unto Thee, God the Father ✝ Almighty, in the unity of the Holy ✝ Ghost, all honor and glory.
XV
The Lord’s Prayer
℣. World without end.
℟. Amen.
Let us pray.
Admonished by Thy saving precepts and following Thy divine instruction, we make bold to say:
Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation.
℟. But deliver us from evil.
The priest answers Amen in a low voice and, with the paten in his hand, continues silently:
Deliver us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, from all evils, past, present and to come, and by the intercession of the blessed and glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God, together with Thy blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and Andrew, and all the Saints, ✝ mercifully grant peace in our days, that through the bounteous help of Thy mercy we may be always free from sin, and safe from all disquiet.
Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who is God, living and reigning with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost.
℣. World without end.
℟. Amen.
He breaks the Host over the chalice.
℣. May the peace ✝ of the Lord be ✝ always ✝ with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.
Said silently, as a particle of the Host is placed in the chalice:
May this mingling and hallowing of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be for us who receive it a source of eternal life. Amen.
Striking his breast three times:
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, grant us peace.
XVI
Prayers for Holy Communion
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst say to Thine Apostles: Peace I leave you, My peace I give you: look not upon my sins, but upon the faith of Thy Church; and deign to give her that peace and unity which is agreeable to Thy will: Who livest and reignest God, world without end. Amen.
O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Who, by the will of the Father and the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, hast by Thy death given life to the world: deliver me by this, Thy most sacred Body and Blood, from all my iniquities and from every evil; make me cling always to Thy commandments, and permit me never to be separated from Thee. Who with the same God, the Father and the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest God, world without end. Amen.
Let not the partaking of Thy Body, O Lord Jesus Christ, which I, though unworthy, presume to receive, turn to my judgment and condemnation; but through Thy mercy may it be unto me a safeguard and a healing remedy both of soul and body. Who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
He takes the Host.
I will take the Bread of Heaven, and will call upon the name of the Lord.
Striking his breast, he says three times:
Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.
He signs himself with the Host and receives.
May the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my soul unto life everlasting. Amen.
What return shall I make to the Lord for all the things that He hath given unto me? I will take the chalice of salvation, and call upon the Name of the Lord. I will call upon the Lord and give praise: and I shall be saved from mine enemies.
May the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my soul unto life everlasting. Amen.
He turns to the people with the Host.
Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him Who taketh away the sins of the world.
℟. Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.
May the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul unto life everlasting. Amen.
At the ablutions:
Grant, O Lord, that what we have taken with our mouth, we may receive with a pure mind; and that from a temporal gift it may become for us an everlasting remedy.
May Thy Body, O Lord, which I have received, and Thy Blood which I have drunk, cleave to my inmost parts, and grant that no stain of sin remain in me, whom these pure and holy Sacraments have refreshed. Who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.
XVII
Communion
Ps 118:4-5
Thou hast commanded thy commandments to be kept most diligently. O! that my ways may be directed to keep thy justifications.
XVIII
Postcommunion
℣. The Lord be with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
May Thy healing power, O Lord, mercifully deliver us from our waywardness and make us ever keep Thy commandments. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Commemoration of St. Placid and his Companions, Martyrs
Grant, we beseech Thee, O almighty and merciful God, that through the intercession of Thy holy Martyrs Placid and his Companions, what we take into our mouths we may eat with pure heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
XIX
The Dismissal
℣. The Lord be with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.
℣. Go, the Mass is ended.
℟. Thanks be to God.
Bowing before the altar, the priest says silently:
May the tribute of my homage be pleasing to Thee, O most holy Trinity. Grant that the Sacrifice which I, unworthy as I am, have offered in the presence of Thy Majesty, may be acceptable to Thee. Through Thy mercy may it bring forgiveness to me and to all for whom I have offered it. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
XX
The Holding
For those who hold this in faith:
Lord, Thou hast taught Thy Church to ask for the company of the martyrs rather than their crown, and Thou hast kept a place in Thy calendar even for a story that got tangled in the telling. Keep that door open for everyone who cannot picture themselves inside it. Grant that we may enjoy their fellowship, here in the ordinary rooms where we already sit, and at the last in the one room where everybody fits. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
And for anyone holding this without faith, or without any idea yet what they hold:
There are people in your life whose names will not make it into any record, or whose record somebody else got wrong, and whose lives mattered anyway. Today is a good day to think of one of them by name, since the names are the part nobody else kept. You do not need a creed to decide that a life counts, and you do not need permission to move a chair over for somebody standing at the back.
XXI
Frequently Asked Questions
Because today is a feria, a weekday with no feast of its own in the universal calendar. In the 1962 rite the Sunday Mass is said again through the following week, without the Gloria and the Creed, until a higher feast interrupts it. So the Introit, Collect, Epistle, Gradual, Gospel, Offertory, Secret, Communion and Postcommunion are yesterday’s. The one new thing is the commemoration of St. Placid and his Companions, which is why today’s homily turns on that prayer rather than on the parable.
So that nobody praying along has to hunt for the words. Bloom prints the full propers and the full Ordinary of the Low Mass every day, repeat or not. The prayers the priest says inaudibly at the altar are marked as said silently, and the Silent button lets you hide them if you would rather follow only what is spoken aloud.
No. Only seven vigils survived Pope Pius XII’s reform of 1955 into the 1962 Missal: Christmas, Pentecost, the Ascension, the Assumption, St. John the Baptist, Ss. Peter and Paul, and St. Lawrence. Only three octaves survived, those of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost, and none of them reaches October. Tomorrow is St. Bruno, a feast of the third class with no vigil, so today is not the eve of anything.
It is the petition of today’s commemoration, and in the Latin it reads de eórum societáte gaudére. Societas is an ordinary word for a partnership or company, the people you are in something with, and gaudere means to be glad, to rejoice. So to enjoy their fellowship is to ask for the martyrs’ company and for gladness in it, rather than for their courage or their reward. It is a request to be included, not a claim to have qualified.
Almost certainly not a martyr. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes the son of the patrician Tertullus, given to St. Benedict at Subiaco as a child, who most likely went with him to Monte Cassino about 529 and appears in St. Gregory’s Dialogues as the boy Maurus drew from the lake. The account of his martyrdom comes from the Passio S. Placidi, which the same article identifies as the work of Peter the Deacon, a twelfth-century monk of Monte Cassino. The Church kept the commemoration anyway, and Bloom prints the history rather than the legend.
On the Catholic Encyclopedia’s account, they belong to an earlier story. The forger of the Passio seems to have confused Placid with Placitus, who with Euticius and thirty companions was martyred in Sicily under Diocletian, and whose feast the earlier martyrologies kept on the fifth of October. The two stories were folded together, and the 1962 calendar still keeps them as one commemoration. Today’s prayer asks for the fellowship of the whole company without sorting them out first.
No. Every oration today is addressed to God, the commemoration included, which asks God to grant us something. Asking the saints to pray with us and for us is asking members of the same body to do what any friend does. Nothing in the Mass directs worship anywhere but to God.
No. You are welcome here exactly as you are, and nothing in this offering asks you to agree to anything before you are ready. The words of the Mass have steadied people for a very long time, and you are free to take what is useful and leave the rest. If all you take from today is a reason to treat someone’s life as mattering, even when the record of it is wrong, that is a real thing to have taken.
Faith in Bloom is the daily liturgical work of Bloom Ministries, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and it is free to read and always will be. If it has been worth something to you and you are able, you can give once or give monthly below. Sending a post to one person who needs it does real work too.
The propers and the Ordinary of the Mass for the feria after the XIX Sunday after Pentecost, with the commemoration of St. Placid and his Companions, are taken from the 1962 Roman Missal. Scripture is quoted from the Douay-Rheims Bible. Biographical detail is drawn from the Catholic Encyclopedia.
The liturgical spine of Faith in Bloom is The New Marian Missal for Daily Mass by Sylvester P. Juergens, S.M., S.T.D., Regina Press, Imprimatur 1961. Faith in Bloom is offered by Bloom Ministries in the Independent Catholic tradition and is not affiliated with or recognized by the Roman Catholic Church.
