It Is The Mass That Matters

Thank you for your query regarding the use of the word Mass: the term is one of the most ancient titles for the mystery of the Holy Eucharist and has been used by Anglicans before, during and after the Reformation. So for us, there should be absolutely no reason not to use this venerable and august title for the Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood. Most Anglicans I have known use the term constantly, and in private conversation I always refer to the Mass as the Mass. Saint Ambrose of Milan, one of the Doctors of the Church and one of the greatest Western Fathers, the mentor of Saint Augustine of Hippo, uses the term in a sermon on the liturgy (Sermon XX) in the mid fourth century. It derives from the formula invoked by the deacon at the end of the Eucharistic liturgy in Latin: Ite missa est, 'go it is finished.' The term Mass originally meant dismissal, but very early came to be used to refer to the entire celebration of the Eucharist. Eventually the term Mass came to be the universal title of the Eucharistic liturgy in the entire Western Church. At the Reformation, even Martin Luther retains the use of the term Mass, which is still officially the name of the Eucharistic rite in the Augsburg Confession and the Book of Concord. Swedish Lutherans today, who retain the Apostolic Succession, still call the Eucharist the Mass. The term Mass is the heritage of the whole Church Catholic.

The Church of England has always historically used the term, and it was thus incorporated into the formal title of the Anglican Eucharistic rite in the 1549 English Book of Common Prayer. The title is 'The Supper of the Lord and Holy Communion, commonly called the Mass.' So the first reformed English liturgy referred to the Mass as the Mass. Since the nineteenth century, the term has been used more widely and freely amongst those who call themselves Anglo-Catholics, but the term has never been strictly limited to Anglicans of any particular theological position. The term was recovered and cherished by the fathers of the Oxford Movement and their successors. Low churchmen or protestant-minded Anglicans do not favour the term and look upon it with grave suspicion, falsely attributing to it the character of Papism or Romanism. The term well predates the creation of the modern Tridentine Roman Church by many centuries and has been used in the Eastern Churches as well as in the West. It is true that the term definitely affirms specific Catholic, as opposed to Roman, doctrines, especially the Real Objective Change and Presence (the Elements of Holy Communion being transformed into the True Body and Blood of Christ) and the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice (the Eucharist being the making-present and re-presentation sacramentally of the one perfect Sacrifice of Christ in an objective and unbloody manner), in opposition of low-church or protestant teaching on the Eucharist, and therefore it does have certain 'political' overtones for that reason. 'Mass' does not equate 'transubstantiation' but it does equate 'Real Presence' and 'Real Offering.' All good Catholic Anglicans call priests priests and Mass Mass because these words have profound theological meaning in which the Presence and Sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist are unambiguously affirmed. As Anglo-Catholics are wont to say, 'It is the Mass that matters.'