Theopedia

Mass

Definition

Mass is the name the Roman Catholic church uses for its celebration of the Eucharist, and is also used by High Anglican churches. The term comes from the Latin missa, drawn from the ancient dismissal formula spoken at the liturgy’s close, “Ite, missa est” (“Go, it is discharged”), and became the principal name for the rite in the Latin church.1 Rome teaches that the Mass is not merely a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice but a real, unbloody re-presentation of that same sacrifice, a doctrine Reformed confessions have consistently rejected.

Confessional Witness

The confession states the Reformed judgment on the Mass in the same terms as the wider Reformed family: in the Lord’s Supper “Christ is not offered up to his Father, nor any real sacrifice made at all for remission of sin of the quick or dead, but only a memorial of that one offering up of himself by himself upon the cross, once for all… So that the popish sacrifice of the mass, as they call it, is most abominable, injurious to Christ’s own sacrifice the alone propitiation for all the sins of the elect.”2 The Westminster Confession states the same judgment in nearly identical language, calling the Mass “most abominably injurious to Christ’s one only sacrifice, the alone propitiation for all the sins of the elect.”3 Both confessions also condemn the practices that accompany the Mass: “private masses,” denying the cup to the laity, and “worshipping the elements, the lifting them up, or carrying them about for adoration.”4

Historical Development

Rome holds that when Christ said, “This is my body,” he offered himself to God at that very moment, and that his command “Do this in remembrance of me” ordained that priests would repeat that same sacrifice, appealing to Malachi’s prophecy of a pure offering made among the nations (Mal. 1:11).5 On this account, the sacrifice the priest offers in the Mass is not a symbol or reminder of Calvary but identical with it, differing only in that the sacrifice on the cross was bloody and the sacrifice of the Mass is unbloody.5 Because the whole Christ is held to be physically present in the consecrated elements, they are reserved, displayed in a monstrance for adoration, carried in procession on the feast of Corpus Christi, and given to the dying as a final communion.5 The Reformation, whatever its own internal divisions over Christ’s presence in the Supper, united in rejecting this doctrine of the Mass as a repeated sacrifice, along with transubstantiation itself.5

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), chap. 43, “The Lord’s Supper.” ↩

  2. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 30, “Of the Lord’s Supper,” para. 2. ↩

  3. Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chap. 29, “Of the Lord’s Supper,” para. 2. ↩

  4. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 30, “Of the Lord’s Supper,” para. 4. ↩

  5. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 22, “The Spirit’s Means of Grace.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4