Mass in the Catholic Church

The Mass is the central liturgical service of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, in which bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ.^[1][2] As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass "the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross, is present and offered in an unbloody manner".^[3] The Church describes the Mass as the "source and summit of the Christian life",^[4] and teaches that the Mass is a sacrifice, in which the sacramental bread and wine, through consecration by an ordained priest, become the sacrificial body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ as the sacrifice on Calvary made truly present once again on the altar. The Catholic Church permits only baptised members in the state of grace (Catholics who are not in a state of mortal sin) to receive Christ in the Eucharist.^[5]

Many of the other sacraments of the Catholic Church, such as confirmation, holy orders, and holy matrimony, are generally administered within a celebration of Mass, but before the Second Vatican Council were often or even usually administered separately. The term Mass, also Holy Mass, is commonly used to describe the celebration of the Eucharist in the Latin Church, while the various Eastern Catholic liturgies use terms such as Divine Liturgy, Holy Qurbana, and Badarak,^[6] in accordance with each one's tradition.

The term "Mass" is derived from the concluding words of the Roman Rite Mass in Latin: Ite, missa est ('Go, it is the dismissal', officially translated as 'Go forth, the Mass is ended'). The Late Latin word missa substantively corresponds to the classical Latin word missio.^[7] In antiquity, missa simply meant "dismissal". In Christian usage, however, it gradually took on a deeper meaning. The word "dismissal" has come to imply a mission.^[8]