I've had a couple of non-Catholic Christian friends who have asked me, "What is Mass?" So, I thought I'd address it....Essentially, "Mass" is the Catholic (and Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant) church service. It is the Celebration of the Eucharist. ( Eucharist- the spiritual communion with God; Holy Communion)
Mass in the Catholic Church begins with an opening prayer and a general confession of one's sins. Then, a lector - a lay person who reads aloud the readings; not a priest- gets up and reads the first reading. The first reading, which is usually a passage from the Old Testament, is followed by some singing. Then, we have the second reading (from the New Testament,) more singing, and the gospel- which is read by the priest. After the gospel, the priest gives a homily- sort of a fancy word for preaching-and we sing again. Following this is the breaking of the bread, everyone in the Church prays the "Our Father" together and then we share the Holy Communion (basically, we recreate the Last Supper on a larger scale because Jesus himself said "Do this in remembrance of me...") After Communion, we sing one last time and mass is over. Wa-La!
Any questions? Please comment, and I will try to answer them!
miss rose, i just looked up the whole protestants term and it is used for all christian denominations that are not catholicism. not mormons, but theyre more of a cult than anything. so its not really one religion or anything. i hope this helps? <3
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