Bloom’s Sunday Mass<\/strong>, offered today in the Independent Catholic tradition \u2014 not affiliated with or recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, but standing in the same apostolic lineage, the same Roman Rite, the same devotion, held by a pastor for whom this tradition has always been home. Beloved, grace and peace to you this morning \u2014 however you arrive here: tired or hopeful, certain or doubting, welcomed elsewhere or shut out elsewhere. Bloom is not a room you have to earn your way into. This is a full Low Mass \u2014 every part spoken, nothing sung, in keeping with the simplicity of the earliest daily Masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (The Church’s own act of communal contrition, opening the Mass)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I confess to Almighty God, to Blessed Mary ever Virgin, to Blessed Michael the Archangel, to Blessed John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the Saints, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed; through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore, I beseech Blessed Mary ever Virgin, Blessed Michael the Archangel, Blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the Saints, to pray to the Lord our God for me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will. We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we adore Thee, we glorify Thee, we give Thee thanks for Thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father almighty. O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ; O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; Who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer; Who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us. For Thou only art holy, Thou only art the Lord, Thou only art most high, Jesus Christ, together with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n (Ps. 77:1)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I am the salvation of the people, saith the Lord: in whatsoever tribulation they shall cry to Me, I will hear them, and I will be their Lord forever. The verse continues: attend, O My people, to My law; incline your ears to the words of My mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Almighty and merciful God, of Thy bounty keep from us all things hurtful, that, being ready both in mind and body, we may with free hearts accomplish those things that are Thine. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ephesians 4:23-28<\/a>, Douay-Rheims<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Brethren: 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 somewhat to give to him that suffereth need.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n (Ps. 140:2)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Let my prayer be directed as incense in Thy sight, O Lord: the lifting up of my hands as evening sacrifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Ps. 104:1)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alleluia, alleluia. Give glory to the Lord, and call upon His name: declare His deeds among the Gentiles. Alleluia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew 22:1-14<\/a>, Douay-Rheims<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n At that time, Jesus spoke to the chief priests and the Pharisees in parables, 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 beeves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come ye to the marriage. But they neglected, and went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laid hands on his servants, and having treated them shamefully, 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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I believe in one God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages: God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father; through Him all things were made. For us and for our salvation He came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. He was crucified for us, suffered, and was buried. On the third day He rose again in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today’s Mass also carries a commemoration observed on this particular Sunday every year \u2014 historically called the Propagation of the Faith, and known to most of us today as World Mission Sunday. Its meaning is straightforward: a day set aside to remember that the Gospel was never meant to stay inside one room. That theme, as it happens, sits naturally beside a parable about a king who, finding his first guest list empty, sends his servants out into the open roads to fill the hall with whoever they can find. We name the commemoration honestly here rather than build a second homily around it, since its own proper prayer text wasn’t something we could confirm against a primary source in time for today \u2014 worth a second look before it’s spoken aloud at any live Mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A king prepares a wedding feast for his son. He invites the people you’d expect \u2014 the ones already on the guest list, already connected, already positioned to be there. They refuse. Not once, but twice, and the second refusal turns openly hostile. So the king does something the original guest list never anticipated: he sends his servants out into the open roads and tells them to bring back everyone they find, “both bad and good.” No vetting. No character reference required. The hall gets filled with people who were never supposed to be there in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That detail \u2014 both bad and good \u2014 is doing more work than it might first appear to do. The king doesn’t instruct his servants to screen for moral fitness before extending the invitation. The invitation itself is what makes someone a guest. Nothing about a person’s record, reputation, or standing determines whether they’re welcome at the table. The only thing that changes anyone’s status is showing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This matters enormously for anyone who has been told, by a church or by anyone claiming to speak for one, that their presence at the table required proof first \u2014 proof of the right gender, the right history, the right kind of life already lived before arrival was permitted. There is a story sometimes told of a trans woman who spent years standing outside the doors of the congregation she’d grown up in, watching the invitation extended to everyone except her, always for some reason that sounded theological but functioned as a locked door. When she finally found a table that let her in exactly as she was, what struck her wasn’t relief exactly \u2014 it was how simple the terms turned out to be. She hadn’t needed to change anything about herself to become eligible. She had just needed someone, finally, to actually mean it when they said everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is precisely the king’s own logic in today’s Gospel. The invitation goes out before anyone earns it. Both bad and good, the text says plainly \u2014 meaning the sorting was never the point of getting in the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the parable doesn’t end at the doorway, and it would be dishonest to pretend it does. Once inside, the king finds a man without a wedding garment, and the man has no answer for it. This detail has been misread for centuries as evidence that entry secretly did require some hidden qualification after all \u2014 as though the invitation came with fine print. Read alongside today’s Epistle, a better answer comes into view. Paul tells the Ephesians to “put on the new man,” to be clothed in “justice and holiness of truth” \u2014 language that describes something given, not something earned in advance. The wedding garment in the parable isn’t a status you needed before you could enter. It’s the response of love that’s offered to you once you’re already inside, freely, the same way the invitation itself was free. The man’s failure wasn’t arriving without credentials \u2014 nobody arrived with those. His failure was refusing to put on what had been laid out for him at the door, free for the taking, and simply declining to wear it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is not a loophole reopening the gate to gatekeeping. It’s a description of what happens after welcome, not a precondition for it. Paul’s list in today’s Epistle reads like a description of the garment itself: putting away lying, speaking truth to your neighbor, not letting anger calcify into something you carry past sundown, working with your hands so you have something left over to give to someone in need. None of that is the price of admission. It’s what the newly admitted get to become, once nobody’s asking them to prove anything just to be let in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of this requires belief in God to hold up as a description of how welcome should work. An invitation with no character test attached, extended to whoever’s actually found on the road, is simply a better invitation than one that quietly screens people out first \u2014 whether or not you call the host of that feast God. For those who do hold this in faith, this Gospel is the clearest possible picture of grace: a table filled by people who did nothing to deserve the seat, and everything, afterward, to grow into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So beloved \u2014 whoever told you the table required proof before you could sit down, they were describing a different feast than the one Christ is describing here. The invitation went out to the highways. It found you exactly as you were. What happens next \u2014 the putting on of the new self, the justice, the truth, the labor of hands turned toward someone else’s need \u2014 that’s not the cost of your seat. That’s what a seat freely given makes possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Ps. 137:7)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n If I walk in the midst of tribulation, Thou wilt quicken me, O Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Receive, O Lord, this offering of ourselves \u2014 our time, our resources, our whole intention this day \u2014 laid before You not as a sacrifice for consecration alone, but as a spiritual offering of everything we are and everything we have been given.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that these gifts which we offer in the sight of Thy majesty may be unto us for salvation. Through Christ our Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Offered within Bloom’s own Independent Catholic tradition)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For this is My Body.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n (For all who cannot receive sacramentally over this broadcast \u2014 the same practice recommended by Roman bishops to their own parishes watching Mass from home; universal to the online format, for anyone, regardless of who is celebrating)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n (Ps. 118:4-5)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thou hast commanded Thy commandments to be kept most diligently: O that my ways may be directed to keep Thy justifications!<\/p>\n\n\n\n May Thy healing work, O Lord, mercifully free us from our own waywardness, and lead us to what is right. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Given as Bloom’s own pastor, within Bloom’s own tradition)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Go in peace, beloved \u2014 carrying with you the plain knowledge that your seat at this table was never something you had to earn, and the garment of love you’re free to put on now that you know it. May you be blessed and kept, this day and always.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Confiteor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kyrie<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Gloria<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Introit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Collect<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Epistle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Gradual<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Alleluia<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Gospel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Creed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Offering (Homily)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A Note on Today’s Commemoration<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Parable Itself<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Offertory<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Secret<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Consecration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Act of Spiritual Communion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Communion Antiphon<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Postcommunion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Closing Blessing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nFrequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n