Daily Offering · 3 October 2026 · St. Theresa of the Infant Jesus
Daily Offering: October 3, 2026 | Humility And Simplicity Of Heart
Welcome to Bloom’s Daily Offering for Saturday, October 3, 2026. Today the Church keeps the feast of St. Theresa of the Infant Jesus, a Virgin, in the third class, and the vestments are white. Nothing is commemorated and nothing is displaced, so the Saturday…
The order of this offering
Before the readings
The Word
Offering and Canon
I
Opening Address
Welcome to Bloom’s Daily Offering for Saturday, October 3, 2026. Today the Church keeps the feast of St. Theresa of the Infant Jesus, a Virgin, in the third class, and the vestments are white. Nothing is commemorated and nothing is displaced, so the Saturday gives way to her completely and every prayer in this Mass is hers. Her Collect asks for one thing, and it’s the thing we’ll stay with this morning: humility and simplicity of heart.
This Mass doesn’t sound like a feast of smallness. You’d expect it to open quietly. It opens instead with a summons off a mountain range, and with God admitting that He has been wounded.
I’d start in that gap, between what we expect and what the missal actually says. Whatever humility and simplicity of heart turns out to mean today, it won’t be what people usually mean when they call somebody little.
We’ll keep humility and simplicity of heart in hand the whole way through, past the Gospel and the Offertory to the antiphon at Communion, and let the Mass define it for us. The prayers the priest says silently are printed in full as well. One of them, said under his breath over the gifts, asks for humility in so many words.
II
A Word on Today’s Propers
This is the fourth time since late August that the opening of Matthew 18 has been read here. It began the Gospel for St. Joseph Calasance on August 27, and it stood inside the longer reading of Matthew 18:1-10 for the feast of St. Michael and again for yesterday’s Mass of the Holy Guardian Angels.
Today’s Mass stops at the fourth verse, which is where its own argument stops, so the Gospel is printed in full. You’ll know the words. Everything else in today’s Mass is new to this archive, and all of it, from the Introit to the Postcommunion, is built around her Collect’s request for humility and simplicity of heart.
III
Introit
Cant 4:8-9
Come from Lebanon, My bride, come from Lebanon, come! You have ravished My Heart, My sister, My bride; you have ravished My Heart.
Ps 112:1 Praise the Lord, you children, praise the name of the 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.
Come from Lebanon, My bride, come from Lebanon, come! You have ravished My Heart, My sister, My bride; you have ravished My Heart.
In the Douay, Canticle of Canticles 4:8-9 reads: Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come: thou shalt be crowned from the top of Amana, from the top of Sanir and Hermon, from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards. Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse.
IV
Collect
O Lord, Who hast said: Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, grant us, we beseech Thee, so to follow the footsteps of blessed Theresa, the Virgin, in humility and simplicity of heart that we may obtain everlasting rewards. Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
V
Epistle
For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring upon her as it were a river of peace, and as an overflowing torrent the glory of the Gentiles, which you shall suck; you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you.
As one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
You shall see and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb, and the hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants.
VI
Gradual
Matt 11:25
I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You did hide these things from the wise and prudent, and did reveal them to little ones.
Ps 70:5 ℣. My trust, O Lord, from my youth. Alleluia, alleluia.
Sir 39:17-19 ℣. Open up your petals, like roses planted near running waters; send up a sweet odor like Lebanon. Break forth in blossoms like the lily, and yield a smell, and bring forth leaves in grace, and praise with canticles, and bless the Lord in His works. Alleluia.
That verse from Matthew holds this whole Mass together. The only other time this archive has printed it, it opened the Gospel for St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.
VII
Gospel
Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.
At that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Who thinkest thou is the greater in the kingdom of heaven?
And Jesus calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them,
And said: Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven.
The Offering
Daily Homily | Humility And Simplicity Of Heart
Listen again to how this Mass opens. There’s no child in it. There’s a bride, and the voice of God calling her down out of high country: Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from…
An Introit that does not sound little
Listen again to how this Mass opens. There’s no child in it. There’s a bride, and the voice of God calling her down out of high country: Come from Libanus, my spouse, come from Libanus, come.
The places He names aren’t gentle. Amana, Sanir and Hermon, the dens of the lions, the mountains of the leopards. Nobody wanders into country like that by accident. You don’t call someone out of it unless you want her.
Notice which way the call runs: downhill. For a feast of humility and simplicity of heart the Church might have reached for a verse about lowliness. She reached for one about leaving the heights.
Then comes the line I’d call the strangest thing on the altar card this morning. Thou hast wounded my heart. God speaks first, and the first thing He says is that He isn’t neutral about her.
Before anything at all is asked of her, the Mass has settled that she’s wanted, and that wanting her has cost God something. That’s the ground humility and simplicity of heart stands on.
Pull that ground out and what’s left of the Mass is ugly: a long instruction to shrink. The Introit won’t allow it. Humility and simplicity of heart was never a smaller version of a person.
Chrysostom on the child in the midst
The disciples want a ranking, and they’d like it settled before supper. Christ stands a child in the middle of the room. As answers go, it’s closer to a refusal.
St. John Chrysostom, working through Matthew in his fifty-eighth homily, takes care over which child this was. He writes: “And the child which He set in the midst I suppose to have been a very young child indeed, free from all these passions. For such a little child is free from pride and the mad desire of glory, and envy, and contentiousness, and all such passions, and having many virtues, simplicity, humility, unworldliness, prides itself upon none of them.”
Stay with the last clause, prides itself upon none of them. Chrysostom has nothing to say here about weakness, or about how easily a small child gets pushed around. What he admires is a habit the child lacks: it keeps no score on its own virtues.
That, very nearly, is what the Collect means by humility and simplicity of heart.
A little further on he sharpens it: “The little child, whether it be insulted and beaten, or honored and glorified, neither by the one is it moved to impatience or envy, nor by the other lifted up.”
Read both halves slowly. Someone who has only been beaten down feels every insult; that’s what being beaten down is. The child Chrysostom describes is free in both directions, and humility and simplicity of heart is the Collect’s name for that freedom.
Most of us would like that freedom and don’t have it. I’d trade a great deal of what passes for spiritual progress for one morning of humility and simplicity of heart as it looks from the inside, when the insult doesn’t land and neither does the compliment.
Humility and simplicity of heart is chosen
Now put the Gospel’s grammar next to the Collect’s request. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child. The verb is reflexive, so the one doing the humbling and the one humbled are the same person.
Nothing in that sentence licenses anyone to humble somebody else. In this Gospel humility and simplicity of heart is done in the first person, with your own name at both ends of the verb.
The verse has been run the other way for a long time. It’s been handed to people who were already at the bottom as a reason to stay there, and the word humility has done the work of a lid. Used like that, it calls a person’s objection pride and their silence a virtue.
Look at who’s in the room, though. Christ is talking to grown men arguing over rank. He isn’t talking to the child. What He asks of those men is humility and simplicity of heart, and only someone holding something can set it down.
Everything turns on who bears the cost. Humility and simplicity of heart costs the one who practises it, since it belongs to someone with something to give up. Smallness pressed onto somebody from outside costs the one pressing nothing at all. Calling that humility and simplicity of heart has never healed anyone.
There is a story told of a woman who spent eleven years caring for her mother through a long decline: the broken nights, the pill organiser on the kitchen table, the house slowly narrowing down to two rooms. When it was over, someone at a parish supper asked her, kindly enough, what she’d been doing with herself all that time. She said, nothing really. A friend who had lived across the street through all eleven years put her cup down and said, you kept your mother at home for eleven years, so don’t tell people it was nothing.
Nothing really was the ledger talking, and humility and simplicity of heart had no part in it. She’d taken somebody else’s accounting of what makes a life count and run it on herself. It looked like modesty. It was closer to giving up.
Humility would have let her say plainly what she’d done and then not need it to be counted. Humility and simplicity of heart can describe its own work accurately. It just has no stake in where that work ends up on anyone’s list.
The counterfeit can’t say what it did at all, and over time it learns to call that silence humility and simplicity of heart. I don’t think the Collect would recognise it.
What the Offertory sings about humility
Listen for the Collect’s word again when the gifts are brought to the altar. The Offertory antiphon is Mary’s song from Luke 1, and in the Douay she says that God hath regarded the humility of his handmaid.
The Latin noun in that verse, humilitas, is the same word the Collect uses when it asks for humility and simplicity of heart. The two English versions part company over it. The Douay says humility, and the modern English our missal source gives says lowliness.
I don’t think we have to choose between them. Mary sings about a low place she was standing in, and she sings that God looked at it. The looking came first.
The same chapter goes on past the verses the Offertory keeps. In the Douay, verse 52 says: He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. That’s what God does with a low place once He has regarded it. He lifts the one standing in it.
The Magnificat shuts the lid argument from the other side, then. Humility and simplicity of heart is asked of those with something to set down. Whoever is already pressed low, God lifts.
A few moments later the priest bows over the gifts and prays under his breath, Humbled in spirit and contrite of heart, may we find favor with Thee, O Lord. The Latin opens In spiritu humilitatis. The prayer is said too quietly for the church to hear, and it asks in the first person for the humility the Collect asked for out loud.
The eagle and the one she carries
The Communion antiphon comes from the Song of Moses, and it’s the day’s last word on all of this.
He led her about, and taught her, and kept her as the apple of his eye. As the eagle he spread his wings, and hath taken her and carried her on his shoulders. The Lord alone was her leader.
Deuteronomy 32 keeps a phrase the antiphon leaves out. Moses’ eagle is enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them. The carrying in that picture is there for the sake of the flying.
Being carried, in Scripture’s own picture, doesn’t make the carried one less. Nor does humility and simplicity of heart ever mean agreeing to be made less.
The Epistle says it in another key. As one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort you. Nobody thinks a grown woman comforted by her mother has been turned back into an infant, and humility and simplicity of heart doesn’t turn an adult back into one either.
Thérèse Martin was born at Alençon on the second of January, 1873, and was educated by the Benedictines. At fifteen she went to Rome with her father to ask the consent of Leo XIII, and she entered the Carmel of Lisieux on the ninth of April, 1888. Four of the Martin daughters entered that Carmel, and a fifth went to the Visitation. She died at Lisieux on the thirtieth of September, 1897, at twenty-four.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, writing before she was canonized, calls her this “‘little’ saint of simplicity, and abandonment in God’s service.” It also records that the book which made her known was written in obedience to her superior and published two years after her death.
She wrote it because her superior told her to. The book the world knows began as an act of obedience, and that is humility and simplicity of heart in a form you can hold.
The Mass called her down out of the mountains of the leopards, and at Communion an eagle has her on its shoulders. In between, the one thing asked of her was humility and simplicity of heart. She had to keep choosing it, on ordinary days, in an ordinary convent.
↑ The order resumes below.
IX
Offertory
℣. The Lord be with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
Luke 1:46-49
My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour: because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid: he that is mighty hath done great things to me.
(The Missal’s Latin runs from verse 46 to the middle of verse 49 and passes over the second half of verse 48. The English follows the Douay wording of the verses it keeps.)
X
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.
Amen.
XI
Secret
We beseech Thee, O Lord, may the holy prayers of blessed Theresa, Thy Virgin, commend our sacrifice to Thee, so that it may be made acceptable by her merits in whose honor it is solemnly offered. 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.
XII
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.
XIII
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.
℣. World without end.
℟. Amen.
XIV
The Lord’s Prayer
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.
Amen.
Said silently, with the paten in his hand:
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.
XV
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.
XVI
Communion
Deut 32:10-12
He led her about, and taught her, and kept her as the apple of his eye. As the eagle he spread his wings, and hath taken her and carried her on his shoulders. The Lord alone was her leader.
(The Missal’s Latin applies Moses’ song to the saint, so the Douay’s him becomes her.)
XVII
Postcommunion
℣. The Lord be with you.
℟. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
May the heavenly sacrament, O Lord, enkindle in us that fire of love which urged blessed Theresa, Thy Virgin, to offer herself to Thee as a victim of charity for mankind. 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.
XVIII
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.
XIX
The Holding
If you believe, take the Collect home as it’s written, and keep it short. It doesn’t ask you to become less than you are, and it gives nobody else a say in how small you ought to be. What it asks for is humility and simplicity of heart, practised with your own hands, about your own accounting.
Ask for humility and simplicity of heart tonight in the Collect’s own words, and ask for the freedom Chrysostom saw in that child, unmoved by the insult and unmoved by the praise. May Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
And if you don’t pray, the distinction this Mass draws is still yours, because it isn’t finally a religious one. A modesty you choose and a smallness somebody else assigns you differ on one point, and it’s the one that counts: who holds the pen. Think of one thing you did this week that mattered and say plainly what it was, without inflating it and without calling it nothing. Humility and simplicity of heart asks you to be accurate about yourself, and accuracy doesn’t need you to believe anything first.
XX
Frequently Asked Questions
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. The third of October carries none of them, and today is not the eve of anything either, so it is simply her feast.
It’s the Collect’s own phrase, and it names a disposition rather than a social position. In the Gospel the Collect quotes, humility is reflexive: it’s something a person does with regard to himself. Simplicity of heart means being one person instead of two, with no public self kept up alongside a private one. Neither word says anything about how much money or standing you have, and humility and simplicity of heart is open to anyone.
Because three feasts since late August have used the opening of Matthew 18. These four verses began the Gospel for St. Joseph Calasance on August 27, and they sat inside the longer reading of Matthew 18:1-10 on September 29 and again on October 2. Today’s Mass ends the reading at verse 4, where its own argument ends, so we print it whole and tell you plainly that you’ve heard it before.
At a Low Mass the priest says a good deal of the Mass under his breath, including the Offertory prayers, the Secret, the Canon and the prayers before Communion. We print them in full so you can pray them with the altar instead of sitting through a silence you can’t follow, and one of them, said as the priest bows over the gifts, asks for the same humility the Collect names when it asks for humility and simplicity of heart. If you’d rather read only what is said aloud, the Silent button at the top of each offering shows or hides the parts said silently at the altar.
No, and the Gospel’s grammar shows why. Christ says whosoever shall humble himself, with the same person as subject and object, and He says it to disciples who are arguing about who ranks highest. Humility and simplicity of heart is asked of people with something to set down. When the verse is quoted at someone who has already been pushed to the bottom, to keep them there, it’s being used against its own sense, and the Magnificat at the Offertory says what God does instead: He exalts the humble.
A saint’s feast usually falls on the day of death, though not always. The Catholic Encyclopedia records her death at Lisieux on September 30, 1897, and the 1962 Roman Calendar keeps her feast on October 3. The 1962 books are the ones Faith in Bloom follows, so October 3 is the day this archive keeps with them.
It means her prayer goes alongside ours rather than in place of Christ’s. In Catholic teaching the sacrifice of the Mass is Christ’s own and needs nothing added to it, and a saint’s merits are themselves gifts of grace, received rather than produced, which is the ground Thursday’s Offering covered. So the Secret asks that her intercession commend an offering that already belongs to Christ, and it leaves the accepting to God.
Because the order of the argument matters. The Introit settles that the soul is desired before anything is asked of her, thou hast wounded my heart, and only then does the Collect ask for humility and simplicity of heart. Put those two the other way round and you’d get a demand for self-diminishment with no love underneath it, which isn’t what this Mass says.
No. You’re welcome here exactly as you are, and nothing in these pages asks you to agree with it before you’re allowed to read it. If the liturgy is beautiful to you and nothing more than beautiful, that’s enough. If one sentence in it helps you treat yourself or somebody else more honestly today, that’s enough too, and it stays true whether or not you ever set foot in a church.
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 feast of St. Theresa of the Infant Jesus are taken from the 1962 Roman Missal. Scripture is quoted from the Douay-Rheims Bible. Patristic material is drawn from St. John Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, and biographical detail 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.
