As the Liturgy is the public prayer of the Church, it must necessarily be influenced by the needs and circumstances of the faithful. For the first three centuries, we know that the Christians were hounded and persecuted by the Roman empire. Hence we expect to find, that the prayers of the Liturgy would beseech God at length for help for His suffering people. When the persecutions had passed away, such prayers would lose their application, and would gradually disappear. Again, the relations of Christians to one another may be different at different times, and this difference would also appear in the Liturgy. Hence we may be prepared to find that prayers and ceremonies, which were once most elaborate or of great importance, have shrunk, in the course of the centuries, to a small compass, and have in cases died out altogether, leaving only the slightest trace of their presence.
The first disturbing element we find in the Liturgy, is the growth of the laws concerning "Catechumens" and "Penitents." Catechumen comes from the same root as "Catechism," and means one who is under instruction in the Christian faith. When the Church began to extend, the applicants for admission into her fold were necessarily men and women of mature age. They were not immediately baptized, but they were tried for a considerable period, and were during that period instructed in some of the more elementary doctrines of the Christian faith. As we have said in No. 32, the early Christians did not make known all their doctrines to the heathen. The "Discipline of the Secret" was in full vigor, and the more mysterious teachings, such as the Sacrifice of the Mass, could be imparted only to the baptized. Hence the catechumens could not be permitted to assist at the celebration of the Liturgy, in which these mysterious doctrines were openly declared. The essentially Christian portion of it begins after the synagogue service. The catechumens were permitted to assist at the Sunday school, but immediately after, they were ordered to depart, and the gates of the Church were closed on them.
Though the vast majority of the first Christians were men of unblemished lives, it is not to be expected that there would not be some among them who would not live up to the teachings of the Gospel. Our Lord had likened His Church to a field, in which the tares grew together with the wheat; and even in His own little company of Apostles, one was a traitor. Early in Christian history, therefore, we find traces of a class of men who had fallen into sin, and who, before they could be forgiven, had to do long and grievous penance. As they were unworthy to stand among the faithful at the time of the sacrifice, they also were compelled to leave the Church together with the catechumens.
As Mass means dismissal, the portion of the Liturgy up to the dismissal of the catechumens and penitents is known as the Mass of the Catechumens. The closing prayers were said over each class as they were dismissed. When the world was converted, and there were no longer any adult catechumens, the prayers for them disappeared, and when public penance went into disuse the first part of the Mass ended with the discourse or sermon, or, if there was no sermon, with the reading from the Gospel.
Those who were baptized and in good standing were known as the "faithful." They remained after the others were dismissed, so that the sacrificial part of the Mass is called the Mass of the Faithful. This explains the common statement that we miss Mass if we come in after the Gospel. We are bound by the law to be present at the sacrifice, and, as the sacrifice begins with the offertory, and as the offertory takes such a short time, we find that if we come in after the Gospel we are not settled down in time to assist at the sacrifice.
In the beginning it was the custom of the Church, that all who attended the Mass should receive the Holy Communion. Hence it was that each one brought his gift at the offertory, and before it, gave the kiss of peace to the brethren. In course of time, as the numbers of those who joined the Church increased, many who were present at the Liturgy did not communicate. For this there were many reasons, as, for instance, the growth of the law of fasting communion. Originally, the Mass was celebrated in the evening, and those who attended had already taken their ordinary meals. Indeed, Saint Paid rebuked the Corinthians on this account.
"When ye come together, therefore, into one place, it is not now to eat the Lord's Supper. For every one taketh before his own supper to eat, and one indeed is hungry and another is drunk. What, have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? Or despise ye the Church of God, and put them to shame that have not? What shall I say to you? Do I praise you? In this I praise you not!" (1 Corinthians 11)
A natural reverence for the Blessed Sacrament brought in the law of receiving before taking ordinary food, and consequently brought about the celebration of the Mass in the morning. Hence there might be some present who for various causes had broken their fast, and were therefore debarred from Communion. Again, a fruitful source of non-communicating attendance arose from the fact that, as the Church increased, faith became weak and charity grew cold in the hearts of many. These attended the Sacrifice, but they could not from their hearts give the kiss of peace, and the consciousness of sin kept them away from the table of the Lord.
The Kiss of Peace has two significations. It tells us of the peace which should reign in men's hearts who offer their gifts at the altar, and it tells of the peace promised by Jesus Christ to those who receive Him in the Eucharist. Therefore, as the pax is appropriate before the offertory, it is appropriate before the Communion. When all the members of the congregation could not with good heart give it to one another, at least it could be given by those who were about to approach the Holy Communion. Hence we find that in the Latin Church the Kiss of Peace was moved from before the offertory to before the Communion.
The invocation of the Holy Ghost was followed by the Great Intercessions. This prayer consisted of three parts. It asked God for mercy for the living, for assistance from the saints, and for rest for the dead. The names of those who had deserved well of the Church were recited at this portion of the services by the deacon. Those names were preserved on tablets called Diptychs (No. 82). Hence the Great Intercessions are sometimes called the diptychs.
The model prayer which our Lord gave His disciples is the Our Father or Pater Noster. It does not appear that it was recited at the Last Supper, and there is no evidence to show that it was used in the first form of the Liturgy. There can be no doubt, however, that its introduction into the celebration of the Mass was one of the earliest additions made to that service. In the petition, "Give us this day our daily bread," our fathers in the faith saw a reference to the "bread which came down from heaven," the Body of our Blessed Lord. Hence the recital of the Pater Noster would be appropriate to the reception of the Holy Communion.
Just as our Lord instituted the Blessed Eucharist surrounded by His Apostles, so it was the custom of the Bishops to celebrate Mass surrounded by their priests. The words of Christ urging His fol lowers to peace and unity were always in their ears, and in the Mass, which ends by the distribution of the sacrament of unity, it seemed to them that all should unite in its celebration, as a practical condemnation of factions, schisms and divisions. In the City of Rome, therefore, the Pope said Mass together with the Roman priests, and, as they received the Holy Communion from him, they showed that they were united with him in spirit. It is easily understood that this practice could be kept up only as long as all the Christians in a town could meet in the one place. As soon as they began to increase in numbers, it became necessary to have subsidiary churches in the great cities. But, in order to continue the idea of unity, the Pope, after breaking the bread, sent a particle of the consecrated Host to the subsidiary churches, so that the priests might place it with the Hosts that they had themselves consecrated. In this manner, not only was the identity of the two sacrifices manifested, but the unity which existed between the Bishop and his priests was exemplified. This particle was called the "Leaven," because, as the leaven leaveneth the whole mass, so this particle joined, as it were, all the faithful into one body. Not only are the different Masses, said at the same time in various places, the same sacrifice, but the Masses said day after day, in the same church, are the same sacrifice. As this sameness was shown by sending the "leaven" from the central church to the subordinate churches, so in the central church itself the identity of the sacrifice day after day was exemplified by reserving a portion of the "leaven" from one day to another. This portion of the Host consecrated at a previous Mass was placed with the Hosts just consecrated to symbolize the fact that the Mass now celebrated is the same as the Masses which were celebrated previously on that altar.
When people wish to take a rough measurement of any object they often pick up a reed or cane to serve as a measuring rod. It is probable that what we do now in default of better was originally done always, so that the word "cane" was employed in the sense of a measure of length. The Greeks used a word, "canon," derived from the same root as "cane," to signify a measuring line or rule or model. Now, as a "rule" means not only a rod or stick, but also a "law," and as "right" signifies not only what is direct or straight, but something which must be observed, so canon came to mean both a measure and a law. In the Mass, the portion which was derived from the rites of the Paschal Supper which were in closest connection with the institution of the Blessed Sacrament was called the Canon or Law of the Mass. The name belongs to the part beginning after the recitation of the Great Thanksgiving.
- taken from The Mass, by Father Peter Christopher Yorke