Holly Mass

Etymology

Etymologically the word Eucharist Greek word ‘Eucharistia’ meaning “thanksgiving”. ‘Eucharistein’ is to say thank you. The Eucharist is at one and the same time memorial and celebration. It is celebration because what is being remembered is also being actualized. The kind of remembering that is at work in the Eucharist is the kind that would be operative if we were to ask someone to remember us in their will. During the holy Eucharist we remember a God who remembers us, who is sharing his goods with us. We are in fact renewing, reaffirming the covenant God made with us in Christ, and this renewal is taking place through an act of remembering.

Importance and Value of the Eucharist

The Eucharist is not simply one of the sacraments. It surely belongs to the sacramental economy. It is the sacrament in which we receive not only the grace but the author of grace. In the celebration of the holy Eucharist the person of Christ is manifested in the most immediate and real manner. When we celebrate the Eucharist with open hands is an attitude of faith. It is becoming conscious of who we are and sacrificing ourselves to God in the Eucharistic rite, in union with and imitation of Jesus’ selfless sacrifice, expecting nothing in return except to be with God. This communion with our father produces a profound transformation of self that both heals and renews us, giving us more life than we could ever ask for or imagine.

The Eucharist is also the source and summit of the Christian life. It is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the people of God by which the church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God’s action sanctifying the world in Christ and of worship men offer to Christ and through him to the father in the Holy Spirit. In the holy Eucharist we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all. The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of thanksgiving to the father, a blessing by which the church expresses her gratitude to God for all his benefits, for all that he has accomplished through creation, redemption and sanctification.

Different Words Used For the Eucharist

1) The breaking of the bread: it was the act by which the presiding person at the banquet opened the meal and it is also symbolic expression which our lord did it at the Last supper. 2) The Lord’s Supper: the Eucharist is never called the last supper. It was the celebration of the presence of the risen lord sharing the meal of his self gift with his disciples. 3) The Eucharist: the Eucharist is the renewal of the supper of the lord. 4) Offering: the term was used to mean the offerings brought to the liturgical assembly for the maintenance of the poor. 5) Dominicum: the term originated from the consideration of the personal source from which the celebration springs Christ, Our Lord.

6) Actio: it was used by St. Ambrose to designate the sacred action of the mass. 7) Liturgia: this was used in the oriental churches. The Greek leitughia means mass which is the act per excellence of divine worship. 8) Anaphora: the term is used to indicate the Eucharistic prayer. In the oriental churches this term is used to indicate the whole Eucharistic liturgy. 9) Kurbana: the term used in the syriac liturgy means gift. Other words used are missa, the Eucharistic assembly, holy sacrifice and so on.