Welcome to Bloom’s Sunday Mass for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Today the Church puts a dinner party and a letter written out of somebody’s troubles side by side, and asks that we be rooted and founded in charity, which is the only thing either reading wants for anybody. This is offered in the Independent Catholic tradition, from the 1962 Roman Rite, and Bloom is not affiliated with or recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. We name that plainly, the way Old Catholic and Anglo-Catholic communities have named it for more than a century, because you deserve to know exactly whose table you are sitting at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wherever you are, you are welcome here. If you have spent this week working out where you are allowed to sit in somebody else’s room, you are welcome, and there is no seating arrangement in this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The vestments are green. This is the long ordinary stretch after Pentecost, the sixteenth Sunday of it, second class. No saint is commemorated in the prayers and nothing is displaced by it, so the propers are the Sunday’s own from beginning to end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One thing before we begin, because it is fairer than passing over it. The entrance chant is Psalm 85 again. The Mass of last Sunday<\/a> opened with the first three verses of it, and today’s antiphon takes the third and the fifth, with the first underneath as the psalm verse. Same psalm, one week apart, different shape, and a Mass prints what the Missal gives it rather than holding a verse back for having been sung recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Lesson is from the third chapter of Ephesians, and the Gospel is the dinner at the house of one of the chief of the Pharisees, in the fourteenth of Luke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Confiteor and Kyrie are said here, from the Missal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We begin by saying out loud, together, that we have got things wrong. On a morning whose Gospel is about rank, the order of this is worth hearing. Everybody in the room says the same words. The accounting does not sort anyone, and no one’s position in it is different from anybody else’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Gloria is said here, from the Missal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then praise, immediately, before a word of the day’s own texts has been read. Whatever the readings turn out to ask of us, the singing came first and was not waiting on the outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ps. 85:3, 5; Ps. 85:1.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have cried to thee all the day: for thou, O Lord, art sweet and mild: and plenteous in mercy to all that call upon thee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Incline thy ear, O Lord, and hear me: for I am needy and poor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The antiphon joins the third verse of the psalm to the fifth and passes over the fourth. The psalm verse under it takes the petition that stands in the second half of the psalm’s opening verse, leaving the title clause “A prayer for David himself” unsung.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. The antiphon is repeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Psalm 85 gave last Sunday<\/a> its opening as well, from the first three verses. The Church has this congregation entering two Masses running on the same needy and poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n May Thy grace, we beseech Thee, O Lord, ever go before us and follow us, and may it make us ever intent upon good works. 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Grace is asked for in front and behind, and then asked to do the making. The prayer never puts us in charge of the good works themselves; it asks grace to make us intent upon them. It asks that we be surrounded and then worked on, which is the same direction of travel the Lesson is about to take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eph 3:13-21<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Brethren: Wherefore I pray you not to faint at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named:<\/p>\n\n\n\n That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his Spirit with might unto the inward man, that Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts; that being rooted and founded in charity,<\/p>\n\n\n\n You may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth: to know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fulness of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now to him who is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand, according to the power that worketh in us; to him be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus unto all generations, world without end. Amen.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The same verb stood in this space in December<\/a>, where it was the peace of God that surpasseth all understanding. Here it is the charity of Christ and the word is knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ps. 101:16-17<\/a>; Ps. 97:1.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n And the Gentiles shall fear thy name, O Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the Lord hath built up Sion: and he shall be seen in his glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alleluia, alleluia. Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: because he hath done wonderful things. Alleluia.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The Alleluia verse leaves the title clause “A psalm for David himself” unsung and stops before the psalm’s own “His right hand hath wrought for him salvation, and his arm is holy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luke 14:1-11<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n At that time, when Jesus went into the house of one of the chief of the Pharisees, on the sabbath day, to eat bread, that they watched him. And behold, there was a certain man before him that had the dropsy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Jesus answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying: Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? But they held their peace. But he taking him, healed him, and sent him away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And answering them, he said: Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fall into a pit, and will not immediately draw him out, on the sabbath day? And they could not answer him to these things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And he spoke a parable also to them that were invited, marking how they chose the first seats at the table, saying to them: When thou art invited to a wedding, sit not down in the first place, lest perhaps one more honourable than thou be invited by him:<\/p>\n\n\n\n And he that invited thee and him, come and say to thee, Give this man place: and then thou begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place;<\/p>\n\n\n\n That when he who invited thee, cometh, he may say to thee: Friend, go up higher. Then shalt thou have glory before them that sit at table with thee. Because every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The Nicene Creed is said here, from the Missal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We say it in the plural, and the plural is doing work this morning. It is not a statement anybody makes from a particular seat, and it does not sound different depending on where in the room you are standing when you say it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Start with the vocabulary of the dinner party, because once you have heard it you cannot unhear it, and it is why the Epistle asks to be rooted and founded in charity instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first seats at the table; one more honourable than thou; give this man place; the lowest place; go up higher; glory before them that sit at table with thee.<\/em> Every one of those phrases is about elevation. The room has exactly one dimension in it and everybody in it is somewhere on the line, which is precisely the room a prayer to be rooted and founded in charity is answering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luke tells us Christ built the parable out of what was in front of him. He was marking how they chose the first seats at the table<\/em>. The parable is not imported into the dinner; it is a description of the dinner, handed back to the people having it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take what that does to the reading. No one at this table is being accused of inventing the ranking. They arrived at a meal that already had a shape, and they took the places that shape offered them, and the shape is what Christ describes back to them. Being rooted and founded in charity is not offered here as an alternative seat at the same table; it is offered as a different thing entirely, and it is underneath the table rather than along it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And before the seating starts, the same room has already shown you what it does with a person. A man with the dropsy is standing there. Christ asks the lawyers and Pharisees whether it is lawful to heal on the sabbath day, and they held their peace<\/em>. Then he asks about an ox in a pit, and they could not answer him to these things<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Twice a direct question is put to that room and twice the room does not answer. The seating parable follows immediately. A gathering that cannot say out loud what a sick man in front of it has a claim on turns out to be a gathering with very firm views about who sits where, and Luke puts the two facts one after the other without comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keep those two facts together for the rest of the morning. The silence and the seating chart belong to the same people on the same afternoon, and neither of them is what the Lesson will ask for. What the Lesson asks for is that a congregation be rooted and founded in charity, and a room that has gone quiet in front of a sick man is showing you exactly what it is standing on instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now hold Paul’s prayer against it, because the vocabulary runs the opposite way and that is the whole of this morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rooted.<\/em> Founded.<\/em> Both of them point down. A root goes down into ground and a foundation goes down into ground, and Paul asks that these people be rooted and founded in charity at exactly the moment you would expect a prayer for something else. He is writing out of my tribulations for you<\/em>. The obvious request is relief, and he does not make it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He makes a stranger one. He asks that they be strengthened by his Spirit with might unto the inward man<\/em>, that Christ dwell by faith in your hearts<\/em>, and that being rooted and founded in charity they might comprehend something. Not one of those verbs goes up. They go in and they go down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is worth saying how unusual that is as a response to bad news. The people at the other end of this letter are upset about what is happening to Paul, and the reply they get is a prayer that they be rooted and founded in charity. He does not ask them to be comforted, or reassured, or told that it will be over soon. He asks that something be put underneath them while the situation stays exactly as it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then look where the going-down leads. Being rooted and founded in charity, Paul says, you may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth.<\/em> The height is in that list. It is the third of four, and the fourth is depth, and Paul has put the whole of it on the far side of the roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is the sentence’s architecture and it is not decoration. You do not get the height by going up. You get it by being rooted and founded in charity, and then the height is one of four things you can take in, none of them reachable from a seat. The dinner party is trying to reach a high place by moving along a table. Paul says the way to see any height at all runs through the ground, and that being rooted and founded in charity is the whole of the route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were on nearby ground a fortnight ago<\/a>, where Paul ended a list of virtues by saying that against such there is no law, and the measuring instrument went out of the room. Today the instrument is still in the room and everybody is holding one. What the Lesson does is not remove it. It says the thing it measures is underneath, where the instrument does not reach, and that being rooted and founded in charity is where a person actually stands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then, having handed over four dimensions, Paul says the thing exceeds them: to know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge.<\/em> The same verb stood in this space in December<\/a> over the peace of God. It is doing the same job here. You are given a frame, told to use it, and told in the next clause that what you are looking at will not fit inside it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the hinge, and if we get it wrong the whole morning turns into something cruel, so we will go slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rooted.<\/em> Founded.<\/em> Read the grammar. You do not root yourself and you do not found yourself. Somebody plants and somebody builds, and the person being prayed for is the ground it happens in. Paul is not issuing an instruction; he is asking God to do something to people who are not being asked to do it themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So being rooted and founded in charity is a passive from start to finish, and the passive is the mercy in it. If it were an imperative it would be one more thing on a list, and the people least able to manage the list would be the people furthest from the promise. Instead the whole phrase sits in the part of the sentence where God is working, which means being rooted and founded in charity is something you can be in the middle of without ever having felt it begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That matters enormously for who is in this room. A prayer to be rooted and founded in charity is not a prayer that you acquire more stability, more settledness, more of the kind of life that looks planted from the outside. If it were, it would be addressed to people who already have one, and it is addressed to a congregation Paul is worried might faint<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So let us shut a door before it opens. If your life at the moment has no roots in it that you can see, if you have moved four times this year, if the ground under you is somebody else’s and they can ask for it back, this sentence is not describing a condition you have failed to reach. Being rooted and founded in charity is not a description of your circumstances. Paul says it is a description of what God does under a person, and he says it to people whose circumstances were not good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shut a second door too, because it is the one this Gospel opens most often. Nothing here says that where you actually sit does not matter, or that being put at the bottom of somebody’s table is fine as long as your interior is sound. It is not fine. Being rooted and founded in charity is a claim about what holds you up, not a claim that the room’s arrangements are harmless, and on Thursday<\/a> this space said the same thing from the other end, that standing is not the same as performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the agency door, which we shut earlier this month<\/a>, stays shut here. A prayer in which God does the verbs is not a prayer that what you do is irrelevant. It is a prayer that what you do is not the foundation. Those are different sentences and the second one is the load-bearing one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the fruit test, aimed where it belongs, at our own record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.<\/em> That verse has been handed, for a very long time and inside Christian rooms, to people who were never in a position to exalt themselves in the first place. Preached that way it stops being a warning to the comfortable and becomes an instruction to the placed: you are at the bottom of the table, and here is a Gospel telling you to want to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read who Christ is actually talking to. Luke says he spoke the parable to them that were invited, marking how they chose the first seats at the table.<\/em> These are people doing the choosing. The advice is addressed to a guest with options, about avoiding the public embarrassment of being asked to give this man place<\/em>. It is not addressed to a person who has never been offered a seat and has nothing to move down from, and such a person is no less rooted and founded in charity for having no chair to give up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where the text asks for a group to be named, so I am going to name one. People who have arrived somewhere they are not from, immigrants and refugees and anyone far from where they started<\/strong>, are very often on the receiving end of verse nine, the one told to give this man place<\/em>, without ever having had verse eight’s choice about where to sit in the first place. The seat is assigned by people who were already in the room, the assignment can change without warning, and the moving happens in front of everybody. Being rooted and founded in charity is the one thing in this Mass that no host hands out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apply the fruit test to our own house and keep it there. We are not discussing anybody’s laws this morning. We are discussing what grows inside congregations that have decided, without ever voting on it, that welcome comes in grades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It grows the seat near the door that is always free. It grows the rota that somehow never reaches certain names. It grows a person introduced by their country for three years and by their name after that, if they last that long. And it grows a version of verse eleven preached at them, gently, as a virtue, in a house that has never asked whether they are rooted and founded in charity or merely seated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of those fruits requires a single unkind person to produce it. That is the point of running the test on our own record rather than on anyone else’s: a room can be warm, well-meaning and entirely sincere, and still be organised on a line. The Lesson’s request would change it, because a congregation rooted and founded in charity has nothing left to rank people by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We named this group here eleven days ago<\/a>, and the question then was different enough to say so. That morning asked whether hospitality is an obligation a house carries or a temperament some people happen to have. Today’s question starts after the door: you are inside, you were let in, and the room is now deciding where you go. Being rooted and founded in charity is the answer to the second question, not the first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yesterday<\/a> this space spent a whole morning on a name and what it costs a room to use one without arguing about it. A seat is the next thing along and it is not the same thing. A name is what you are called; a seat is where a room has decided you belong. Both get assigned by other people, and being rooted and founded in charity is what the Lesson puts underneath both of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of this is produced by cruelty, which is exactly why it survives. No one at that dinner is described as wicked. They are described as choosing the first seats, which is ordinary, and as declining to answer a question about a sick man, which is also ordinary, and the two turn out to be the same room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let me bring it down to the size it actually lives at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a story sometimes told of a city library with a reading room at the back, four low chairs, a radiator under the window, and a set of rules pinned up by the door that no one had updated since the seventies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A man came in most afternoons for about two years. He had been sleeping in a stairwell for the first winter of it and in a hostel for the second, and the reading room was warm and it was open, and those were the two things it had going for it. He read the papers. He slept sometimes, upright, in the chair nearest the radiator, which is the chair anybody would pick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The thing he told a volunteer, much later, was not about a kindness anyone did him. It was that in two years no member of staff had ever asked him to move. Not to a different chair, not out at four, not along so somebody else could sit. He had spent those two years being asked to move on from doorways, from benches, from a bus shelter and from the front of a shop, and in that one room it never happened once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He could not have said when he worked it out. It was not an event and there was nothing to remember. He said it took him the best part of a year to stop bracing for it, and that the year he spent bracing was not restful and he would not describe it as a gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The library did not fix anything. He was still without a home at the end of the two years and the room had no power to change that and never claimed any. What it had was the one thing the dinner party in the Gospel could not manage: it left a person where he was long enough for something to go down into the ground. That is what being rooted and founded in charity looks like at ground level, and it is mostly made of things that did not happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hold the limit on that as firmly as the promise. A warm room is not a life, and being rooted and founded in charity is not a substitute for a door key, a tenancy or an income. The Lesson does not offer roots as compensation for ground, and neither does this Mass. The prayer it closes on asks for bodily help as plainly as it asks for anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If none of the theology here is yours, the sentence still holds. People put down roots in places where they are not moved, and a room that keeps reassigning where somebody sits is a room no one grows in, whatever is said at the front of it. Being rooted and founded in charity is a claim about ground before it is a claim about God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So carry this out with you. If a room has told you this week where you belong in it, that is the room’s arrangement and not the truth about you, and the Lesson prays for something underneath it that no seating plan reaches. And if you are the one who decides where people sit, the Gospel has a question for you and it is not about seats. It is whether your room can answer out loud what the person standing in the middle of it has a claim on.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Penitential Rite<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Gloria<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Introit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Collect<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Epistle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Gradual and Alleluia<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Gospel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Creed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Offering<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A room that only runs upward<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Rooted and founded in charity goes down<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Both of Paul’s words are passive<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What the parable does not say<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A reading room on a wet Thursday<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Offertory<\/h2>\n\n\n\n