Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/256

 MASS raens. The genius of Inigo Jones was for several years employed exclusively upon the decorations and elaborate machinery of the court masques, and Henry Lawes furnished the music for several of them. The queens of James I. and Charles I., with the chief nobil- ity of the court, participated in these enter- tainments the preparation of which frequent- ly occupied many months, and cost immense sums. With the death of Ben Jonson, who may be regarded as the chief writer of masques, the taste for them died away. MASS (Lat. missa, from mittere, to dismiss), in the Roman Catholic church, the form of celebrating the Lord's supper. When first in- troduced, the term denoted the dismissal of the catechumens and penitents, who were per- mitted to be present at the introductory, but not at the sacramental service, before the be- ginning of which they were called upon to leave the church. The two parts of the ser- vice were then distinguished as missa cate- chnmenorum and missa fidelium. The oldest writing in which we find the term missa is a letter of St. Ambrose, and very soon after his time it passed into general use. Accord- ing to the definition of Roman Catholic the- ologians, the mass is the true sacrifice of the new law an offering instituted by Christ, in which, by the consecration and consumption of his body and blood under the form of bread and wine, Christ himself is mystically slain and offered as a victim to God the Father in recog- nition of his sovereign dominion. The Catho- lic church believes that by the words of con- secration, pronounced by the priest over the bread and the wine, these elements are changed into the body and blood of Christ. The sac- rifice of the mass is not considered to be sub- stantially different from the sacrifice offered by Christ on the cross, but a repetition of it, Christ offering himself again through the hands of the priest. Through it the merits of Christ are believed to be available to men. It is called a propitiatory sacrifice, as Christ is be- lieved to be really present as a victim, asking pardon for sinners as he did on the cross. The Roman Catholic church therefore sometimes offers masses specially for the dead, whom she mentions indeed in every mass. As she believes that Christians who leave this world without having sufficiently expiated their sins are ob- liged to suffer a temporary penalty in the other, she prays God, through Jesus Christ, for the remission of this penalty. The mass is called a eucharistic sacrifice, because it is believed that by offering Christ the church expresses gratitude to God in the best possible manner ; and an impetratory sacrifice, because she hopes that God, touched by this offering, will grant new mercies. In the first centuries bishops when celebrating mass were attended by other bishops or by priests, who offered, consecrated, and comimmiraU'd with them. This was termed 'rare and contrtcrijicare. This custom prevailed in both the Greek and Latin churches ; and in the latter it is still usual for priests on the day of their ordination to celebrate with the ordaining bishop. In the Lyonnese rite, which has very recently been abolished, a number of priests thus officiated with the bish- op at solemn pontifical mass. It was also a rule in the early church, when bishops visited each other, that they should unite in celebra- ting as a sign of their being of the same com- munion. In a liturgical point of view, the mass is divided into five parts : 1, the prepar- atory part, formerly called the mass of the catechumens; 2, the offering, which extends from the offertory to the canon ; 3, the canon, including the consecration ; 4, the breaking of the host and the communion ; 5, the thanks- giving or post-communion. In these parts the liturgies of all the eastern or western churches, except in the Protestant communions, substan- tially agree (see LITURGY), as well as in pre- scribing the breaking of the bread, in confor- mity with the words of the Scriptures, which say that Christ broke the bread. In the be- ginning, as Justin Martyr testifies in his second apology, the Lord's supper was only celebrated on the Lord's day ; but, according to Pellicia, the western Christians began in the 2d cen- tury to celebrate it on Fridays and Wednesdays as well, and in the East during the 4th century it became customary to celebrate on Saturdays. St. Augustine says that a great diversity ex- isted about this in his time ; it was then the rule to offer the sacrifice daily in the churches of Africa, Spain, and Constantinople, and this rule was made universal in the 6th century. At this epoch the Latin church allowed bish- ops and priests, wherever there existed insuf- ficiency of church room, to celebrate twice on certain great festivals, as on the feast of the Circumcision, Jan. 1. In some places this was done thrice and even four times. On Holy Thursday, every priest was allowed to celebrate thrice, and twice daily during the whole of Easter week. In the 8th century at Rome the privilege of triple celebration was also attached to June 29, the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. At present the privilege of saying three masses on the same day is restricted in the Roman Catholic church to Christmas. In Spain the privilege is enjoyed by priests on All Souls' day, Nov. 2. In missionary countries, where there is a scarcity of clergymen, each priest is permitted, by a special indult from Rome, to say mass twice on Sundays and holidays of obligation. In modern times it has been often proposed in the church to celebrate the mass more rarely, and only when a large at- tendance of the people is to be expected. But the council of Trent confirmed the practice of saying private masses, and recommended a daily celebration. The presence of one who recites the responses is required at private mass. The liturgy of the mass still indicates that in former times all the people who were present communed with the priests. This usage gradually ceased, and the priest was