Roman Catholicism: The Basics by Walsh Michael

Author:Walsh, Michael [Walsh, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781135012083
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2016-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

The Mass

Two separate aspects of the Mass will be discussed in this book. The first is what happens during the service and why. The second aspect is theological – what Catholics believe is going on in the Mass. This will be presented in a separate section in this chapter (see p. 123ff.). The Mass being described is what is called the ‘missa normativa’, or the basic service – one without, as you might say, any frills. ‘Frills’ might include the use of incense, for instance, or more than one priest celebrating at the same time, or the Mass might be said either by a bishop, or with a bishop present but not celebrating, and so on. There are a large number of possible variations even to the ‘missa normativa’, quite apart from the possibility that the Mass is celebrated according to different ‘rites’ even within the Western Church – although these rites are uncommon and many Catholics will not have seen a celebration that is anything but the standard Roman rite.

The priest comes to the altar dressed in ‘vestments’. Nowadays they are more straightforward than they used to be. They are intended to emphasise that what is about to take place is a formal public ritual, not an informal gathering (and so usually, when Mass is said, which it sometimes is, in informal surroundings, priests dispense with the vestments except for the stole, the priest’s symbol of office). The colour of the top vestment, the chasuble, varies according to the nature of the feast being celebrated – it is, for example, red on the feast of martyrs or black for funeral or requiem Masses (requiem comes from ‘Requiescat in Pace’, ‘May he/she rest in peace’), although it is not uncommon for white vestments to be used on these occasions, the requiem now being seen as a celebration of someone’s life. The priest is usually accompanied by altar-servers, traditionally boys, but increasingly now girls as well. They are sometimes called ‘acolytes’.

At the beginning of the service there is a form of preparation: the priest and his congregation repent of their shortcomings, or sins, and ask forgiveness. The early Roman liturgy was performed in Greek, and one bit of Greek survived even into the Latin liturgy at this point: the priest or people said, or sang, ‘Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison’, Greek for ‘Lord/Christ have mercy’. A hymn is then very often sung or said, the ‘Gloria in excelsis’ or ‘Glory to God in the highest’, and the hymn is followed by a prayer, called a ‘collect’. The collect will vary with the day of the year, and on the feast day of a saint will invoke the saint’s intercession with God. This prayer ends the preparatory phase of the rite.

Next there follows a series of readings. On Sundays and feast days there are usually three: one from the Old Testament, one from New Testament other than the Gospels, and a third from the Gospels. The first and second reading are separated by a psalm.

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