Opening Address Advent’s first weekday does something the calendar rarely does out loud: it says yesterday again. The Mass of this Monday is the Mass of the First Sunday of Advent, unchanged, down to the last clause of the Secret, and the order standing in the middle of it is the same order it was […]
Category Archives: Liturgy & Prayer
The prayer stream of Today, in Bloom.
30
Nov
Nov
Opening Address Bloom’s Sunday Mass, and the Church’s instruction for the first morning of a new year is to put on the armour of light. Not to take stock, not to strip down, not to begin again from nothing—to get dressed. This is the First Sunday of Advent, the vestments are violet, and a new […]
29
Nov
Nov
Opening Address Good morning, and welcome. Today is Saturday, the twenty-ninth of November, and it is the last day of the Church’s year. Tomorrow is the First Sunday of Advent and the whole calendar begins again. The final entry before it is a Saturday with no feast of its own, handed to Our Lady, with […]
28
Nov
Nov
Opening Address Bloom’s Daily Offering for Friday, and the psalm sung between the readings this morning opens with a finished sentence: thou hast saved us. Not save us. Not thou wilt save us one day when the paperwork is done. Today is a fourth-class feria in green, with no saint, no feast and no commemoration […]
27
Nov
Nov
Opening Address Bloom’s Daily Offering for Thursday, and the entrance chant this morning says you shall call upon me, and I will hear you. That is the whole promise, handed over at the door, with nothing attached to it and no conditions on the front. Today is a fourth-class feria in green: no saint, no […]
26
Nov
Nov
Opening Address Peter asks the blunt question today, and he asks it out loud in front of everybody. Behold we have left all things, and have followed thee: what therefore shall we have? It is the question the pious part of us is embarrassed by, and there is no rebuke anywhere in the answer. Christ […]
25
Nov
Nov
Opening Address Good morning, and welcome. Today is Tuesday, the twenty-fifth of November, and the Church keeps St. Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr, third class, in red. The Lesson she is given is a list of everything that nearly destroyed a man, and the clause sitting in the middle of that list is five […]
24
Nov
Nov
Opening Address Nothing in today’s Mass is new except three prayers. Every reading, every antiphon and every sung line of it was heard nine days ago, on the feast of a different teacher, and the Church has used the whole of it again for John of the Cross. What is his alone is a Collect, […]
23
Nov
Nov
Opening Address Bloom’s Sunday Mass, and this is the last one of the Church’s year. Next Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent and the vestments go violet, so this morning closes the long green season—and the Church closes it by reading you twenty-one verses about the end of everything and then handing you, in […]
22
Nov
Nov
Opening Address Good morning, and welcome. Today is Saturday, the twenty-second of November, and the Church keeps St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr, third class. Before a single reading, before the saint is so much as described, the entrance chant hands us four words about somebody’s standing: I was not ashamed. The day the temporal calendar […]