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The Mass |
The Mass as a liturgical service is perhaps more readily known to today's public than the Divine Office, since it is regularly attended by the laity. It consists of two parts: the first is much like the Divine Office, in that it contains prayers and readings from the Bible (often collected in a lectionary for the mass), such as were customary to the Jewish services from which this "liturgy of the word" derives. The second part contains the consecration of the bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Christ, according to the mandate in the Gospels, "This is my body . . . This is my blood . . . do this as a memorial of me" (Mark 14:22-25; 1 Cor. 11:23-25). The two parts were already fused into a single service by the middle of the second century, as shown by the writings of Justin Martyr, although the core of the second and specifically Christian part of the Mass, called the Canon, only achieved its completed form during the sixth century. The usual name of this service derives from its closing formula, "Ite, missa est" meaning, "Go, it is the dismissal." The sacramentary is a book for use by the celebrant at Mass and therefore it contains the common and proper texts and chants that he intoned, read, or sang. Other parts of the Mass can be indicated by their incipit, and frequently no musical notation is provided except for what the priest sang. Later, a missal combines in a single volume what had previously been separate books for the celebration of Mass, including the sacramentary, the gradual, cantatorium, and lectionary or Gospel Book and Epistolary. The missal was a book for use by the
celebrant at Mass and therefore contained the proper texs and chants that
he intoned, read, or sang. Other parts of the Mass can be indicated by
their incipit, and frequently no musical notation is provided except for
what the priest sang. Many later missals combine what were previously
separate books for the celebration of Mass, including the gradual,
cantatorium, sacramentary, and lectionary or Gospel Book and Epistolary.
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