Opening Address Bloom’s Daily Offering for Thursday, and the Lesson ends this morning on a sentence that asks nothing of you at all—a peace which surpasseth all understanding. This is the Feria V after the Third Sunday of Advent, second class, and the vestments are violet. There is no saint on the calendar, nothing displaced, […]
Author Archives: Pastora Tori Matthews
17
Dec
Dec
Opening Address Advent has been running one formulary for days at a time, and this morning it stops and does something it does not do in any ordinary week. Two Lessons are read instead of one, each with its own Collect and its own Gradual, and the second of them ends with a sentence the […]
16
Dec
Dec
Opening Address Advent goes violet for most of a month, and this morning a martyr’s red is laid across it for one day. The Church keeps St. Eusebius of Vercelli, a bishop who spent years of his life in exile a long way from the city he was given, and the Lesson it hands him […]
15
Dec
Dec
Opening Address Bloom’s Daily Offering for Monday, and the Gospel this morning is a short interview in which the interesting question comes last—what sayest thou of thyself. This is the Feria II after the Third Sunday of Advent, third class, and the vestments are violet again. Yesterday they were rose for one morning; today the […]
14
Dec
Dec
Opening Address Bloom’s Sunday Mass, and the Church begins this morning by telling you to be glad and then, in the same breath, telling you to ask for something—so let your petitions be made known. This is the Third Sunday of Advent, first class, the Sunday the Church calls Gaudete, and the vestments may be […]
13
Dec
Dec
Oppening Address Today the Church keeps St. Lucy, and the first thing worth saying about her Mass is that almost none of it is hers. The Introit is a psalm written for a king. The Lesson is Paul writing to Corinth about his own credentials. The Gospel is the one the Church reads over half […]
12
Dec
Dec
Opening Address Bloom’s Daily Offering for Friday, and the Lesson ends this morning the way it ended on Sunday and twice since: with a prayer that you may abound in hope. Not hold on to some. Not keep enough to be going on with. Abound. This is the Feria VI after the Second Sunday of […]
11
Dec
Dec
Opening Address Feed my sheep. That is the whole of the order given in this morning’s Mass, and it is given three times before the Lesson has even begun. Today is white, in the middle of a violet fortnight, for a bishop of Rome who died on this day in 384. The Mass itself is […]
10
Dec
Dec
Oppening Address Look forgivingly on thy flock. That is the one sentence this Wednesday adds to a week that has otherwise said everything it has to say already, and it is worth the whole morning. Advent hands us the Second Sunday’s Mass for the third time in four days. The readings are the ones we […]
09
Dec
Dec
Opening Address Bloom’s Daily Offering for Tuesday, and today the Church gives you a text you were given two days ago, on the grounds that it was written for our learning and learning is not a thing that happens once. This is the Feria III after the Second Sunday of Advent, third class, and the […]