Mass

The name used in the ancient western church, and retained in the Roman Catholic Church, for the Lord's Supper or Eucharist. The name derives from a line in the Latin liturgy used for the celebration, "ite missa est," "go, it is sent." Why so remains a curious and inexplicable mystery.

Part and parcel of the theology of the Mass is the idea of transubstantiation, that is, that the bread and wine are transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ as the elements are elevated in the celebration. The Mass, therefore, represents a re-actment of the crucifixion of Christ on the cross. When the priest raises up the element of the bread (called the "host") during the ceremony, he is, in effect, re-sacrificing the body of Jesus. It is chiefly for this reason that the 16th Cent reformers rejected the Mass.