Tag Archives: 1962 roman missal

Daily Offering: December 18, 2025 | Surpasseth All Understanding

Surpasseth all understanding — four upturned chairs stacked against the wall of an empty parish hall and one chair left standing by a plain table in flat winter daylight

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, […]

Daily Offering: December 15, 2025 | What Sayest Thou of Thyself

What sayest thou of thyself — a printed sheet on a plain table in a bare waiting room, three empty tick boxes ruled down one side and a wide blank space below them, in flat winter daylight

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 […]

Sunday Mass: December 14, 2025 | Let Your Petitions Be Made Known

Let your petitions be made known — a paper list pinned to a plaster wall with a pencil on a string beside it, in bright daylight from a skylight above scuffed floorboards

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 […]

Daily Offering: December 12, 2025 | Abound in Hope

Abound in hope — old brass balance scales on a plain wooden counter, both pans empty and hanging level in flat morning daylight

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 […]

Daily Offering: December 9, 2025 | Written for Our Learning

Written for our learning — a footpath worn bare across a winter field under flat overcast light, a low hedge closing the far end

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 […]

Sunday Mass: December 7, 2025 | Receive One Another

Receive one another — a heavy wooden door standing open from a bare stone room onto a bright dusty road running downhill in flat noon light, a rough stool beside the doorway

Opening Address Bloom’s Sunday Mass, and this morning the Church asks you to receive one another, which is a smaller instruction than it sounds and a harder one to get out of. This is the Second Sunday of Advent, first class, and the vestments are violet for a second week. We offer this Mass in […]

Sunday Mass: November 30, 2025 | Put On the Armour of Light

Put on the armour of light — a coat and a folded jacket hanging on wooden pegs in a bare hallway, boots beneath, the front door ajar onto pale morning light

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 […]

Daily Offering: November 28, 2025 | Thou Hast Saved Us

Thou hast saved us — a plain wooden field gate standing wide open at the end of a frosted track under flat late-November daylight

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 […]

Daily Offering: November 27, 2025 | I Will Hear You

I will hear you — an ordinary small-town street at mid-morning in late November under flat overcast daylight, with nothing happening

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 […]

Sunday Mass: November 23, 2025 | My Words Shall Not Pass

My words shall not pass — a plain wooden signpost at an empty crossroads on a wide plain, half the sky clear and half under an advancing rain front

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 […]