It is common today to hear the Mass referred to as the liturgy. Liturgy can
refer to any public act that the Church celebrates. One of the ancient names
for the Mass is the Divine Liturgy-literally, God’s public service.
What in the past would have been referred to as the Mass of the Catechumens is now called the Liturgy of the Word, and what would have been called the Mass of the Faithful is now referred to as the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Eucharist is also a Greek word that means “thanksgiving.” One of the central prayers in the second part of the Mass is a prayer of thanksgiving, and, of course, the Eucharist is also another name for the Blessed Sacrament. Liturgy then, comes from a Greek word that means “public work” or “public service.”
The original names for the Mass that were used in the early Church and later include:
+ The Breaking of the Bread
+ The Lord’s Supper
+ The Eucharist
+ The Offering
+ The Holy Sacrifice.
Each of these names carries with it some sense of what the celebration of the Mass is: a holy recalling of the sacrifice of Jesus that He offered God the Father during His last meal with His apostles on the night before He died. During that meal He took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread and gave it to His disciples.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the Mass by saying, “The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church’s life, for in it Christ associates His Church and all her members with His sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once and for all on the cross to His Father; by this sacrifice He pours out the graces of salvation on His Body which is the Church” (#1407).
The Church is the Body of Christ, and through the celebration of the Eucharist the Church becomes most fully what she is. We are present at the one sacrifice that Christ offered the Father, and we join our own sacrifice to His at every Mass.
The Mass is also a banquet. Offering our sacrifices to those of the Lord, we in turn receive His Body and Blood and become more fully part of His Body here on earth.
Sometimes one aspect of the Mass is emphasized over another, but both are necessarily a part of the Mass. There can never be a meal where something has not been sacrificed and in turn becomes our food. The “Lamb that was slain” (Rev. 13:8) is the sacrifice that is offered at Mass and the meal that is served.
There is no act that we as Christians participate in during our earthly lives that is more important than this act!