Why it's called the Mass, (aka Its not from Ite misa est)

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To my surprise, I may not be that far off the mark. It says here that Mass comes from the Vulgar Latin: Messa (Eucharistic Service). I wonder if Messa means table (banquet 😉 ) in Old Latin.

“Eucharistic service,” Old English mæsse, from Vulgar Latin *messa “eucharistic service,” literally “dismissal,” from Late Latin missa “dismissal,” fem. past participle of mittere “to let go, send” (see mission); probably so called from the concluding words of the service, Ite, missa est, “Go, (the prayer) has been sent,” or “Go, it is the dismissal.” Sometimes glossed in Old English as sendnes “send-ness.” etymonline.com/index.php?term=mass

What I am gathering here is that in the Vulgar Latin “Messa” meant dismiss and in the 'late latin" “messa” became “missa”.

I wonder if “messa” also meant “table” in the Vulgar Latin which would make reference to the banquet. So, the catechumens were dismissed for the banquet.

What is the time difference between, Vulgar, Late and just Latin?

Well ‘missa’ should be different then ‘misa’ which is linked to hatred e.g. misology etc… quizlet.com/13785076/vocab-and-roots-1-flash-cards/
 
Abba said:
But, it is not ‘Mass’ neither in Latin nor Spanish. I wouldn’t trust that list.
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Now that you mention it, it doesn’t look right. I’ll see if there is some verification on it. It may provide some clues as to the source.
 
Any proposed derivation is going to need some kind of documentary evidence to back it up. Whether it’s De Maria’s Hebrew “matzah” (unleavened bread), or Latin “mensa” (table), or anything else, we would need to see an early document in which the word is clearly being used to designate the Eucharistic rite as a whole, not just the bread or wafer in the case of “matzah” or not just the altar in the case of “mensa”…

As I said in an earlier post, I have a strong suspicion that no such documentary evidence has ever been found, because, if it had been, people would have known all about it long ago. What would be the point of keeping it secret?
 
BartholomewB said:
Any proposed derivation is going to need some kind of documentary evidence to back it up. Whether it’s De Maria’s Hebrew “matzah” (unleavened bread), or Latin “mensa” (table), or anything else, we would need to see an early document in which the word is clearly being used to designate the Eucharistic rite as a whole, not just the bread or wafer in one case or not just the altar in the other case.

As I said in an earlier post, I have a strong suspicion that no such documentary evidence has ever been found, because, if it had been, people would have known all about it long ago. What would be the point of keeping it secret?
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Absolutely.

I like my little theory here. It seems more logical for the ancients to use ‘messa’ as refering to the banquet. There is no big deal in dismissing the catechumens and well, yes it is nice to note that the faithful are being sent but that is not more important than the banquet. The importance of the Mass is the banquet and this the ancients would emphasize.

I will see what documents are available for research. We don’t have much that go back that far and well, who knows. I came upon some beautiful Latin writings of the missionaries that went to the New World which have not been translated from the Latin to any language (got it at an estate sale of a Latin literature professor)… I will see but don’t hold your breath. It would take some serious research maybe at the Vatican and in Spain.
 
ProVobis said:
That’s Spanish. Table is actually “Mensa” in the Latin.

You will find a lot of Latin in Spanish actually, with a lot of dropped letters, that is.
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They explain in the link below that the phonetic evolution of Latin to Spanish involved dropping the n attached to s, e.g. etimologias.dechile.net/?mesa

This is so, but, it does not prove that this is what happened with ‘mesa’ which could have come from ‘messa’ and jus the ‘s’ was dropped.

What is the word for “table” and “banquet” in the Vulgar Latin. Late Latin and Latin?
 
ProVobis said:
I thought something was awry. In Spanish it is “misa,” in Italian “messa,” in French, “messe,” in German, “Messe.”

newadvent.org/cathen/09790b.htm

or did someone already post this link?
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Maybe ‘Italian’ is the key.

It appears as though in Italian ‘messa’ refers exclusively to the Eucharist not a ‘dismissal’ of either the catechumen or the faithful.

"messa’ in Italian also seems to mean: to put, to place, to leave, but, I cannot find the Latin root for the Italian.

es.bab.la/diccionario/italiano-espanol/messa#st
 
Messo (masc.), messa (fem.), is the past participle of the verb mettere, to put.

italian-verbs.com/verbi-italiani/coniugazione.php?id=6086

It corresponds to the French mis/mise, the past participle of mettre.

For example, a woman who has her hair waved, has curls put in it: she has a *mise en plis *in French and a *messa in piega *in Italian, literally, in both cases, “a putting in pleats”.

This is not the same word as messa, Mass, in the ecclesiastical sense

Nor is it, of course, the same word as massa, mass in the physics sense (“a mass of 500 grams”), post #24.
 
Abba said:
Maybe ‘Italian’ is the key.

It appears as though in Italian ‘messa’ refers exclusively to the Eucharist not a ‘dismissal’ of either the catechumen or the faithful.

"messa’ in Italian also seems to mean: to put, to place, to leave, but, I cannot find the Latin root for the Italian.

es.bab.la/diccionario/italiano-espanol/messa#st
Click to expand...
Messo (masc.), messa (fem.), is the past participle of the verb mettere, to put.

italian-verbs.com/verbi-italiani/coniugazione.php?id=6086

It corresponds to the French mis/mise, the past participle of mettre.

For example, a woman who has her hair waved, has curls put in it: she has a *mise en plis *in French and a *messa in piega *in Italian, literally, in both cases, “a putting in pleats”.

This is not the same word as messa, Mass, in the ecclesiastical sense

Nor is it, of course, the same word as massa, mass in the physics sense (“a mass of 500 grams”), post #24.
 
Saint Ambrose is definitely referring to the Eucharist when he writes - * missam facere coepi* and this after he dismissed the catechumens. It just stands to reason that missam, misa, messe, mass is referring to the Eucharist - the banquet - the meal - that is the center and the most important thing that is happening - not the catechumens nor that the faithful are being sent. Why call something so important by another name? A lot happens at Mass, why not call it incense, bible, sacred scripture, the gathering whatever - for that matter. The center is the meal - the Eucharist and I think that is what missam comes from. We may not good records to track the phonetic evolution. 🤷

Yeah, that Britanica Encyclopedia did a lot of damage. :mad:
 
BartholomewB said:
Messo (masc.), messa (fem.), is the past participle of the verb mettere, to put.

italian-verbs.com/verbi-italiani/coniugazione.php?id=6086

It corresponds to the French mis/mise, the past participle of mettre.

For example, a woman who has her hair waved, has curls put in it: she has a *mise en plis *in French and a *messa in piega *in Italian, literally, in both cases, “a putting in pleats”.

This is not the same word as messa, Mass, in the ecclesiastical sense

Nor is it, of course, the same word as massa, mass in the physics sense (“a mass of 500 grams”), post #24.
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Thank you.

I better leave before De Maria gets back and see that I may have messed up his thread. 😊
 
Abba said:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Peter_Falk_-1973.JPG/160px-Peter_Falk-_1973.JPG

…just one more thing…

Notice how Saint Isidore is using the word “missa” meaning ‘dismissal’ and Saint Ambrose is using ‘missam’ for 'Eucharist or meal etc…" They are two different words.

Just saying.
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They are two different cases of the same word. Latin is a heavily inflected language and thus words are declined with different endings to indicate what function they serve in the sentence. This is true still in some cases in modern English; who and whom function differently but are still the same word. It all depends on where they occur in the sentence.

-ACEGC
 
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