Reason 26

26. Because the New Mass was made in accordance with the Protestant definition of the Mass: “The Lord’s Supper or Mass is a sacred synaxis or assembly of the people of God which gathers together under the presidence of the priest to celebrate the memorial of the Lord” (Par. 7 Introd. To the New Missal, defining the New Mass, 4/6/69). (Bolding in the original).


I have trouble responding to this objection simply because I cannot find a copy of the Introduction to the New Missal and thus cannot verify this quote nor find its context. As such I shall assume it is an accurate quotation and that is not altered significantly by the surrounding paragraphs.

The first thing I must then raise is that Protestants have no definition of the Mass as it is a Catholic act, just as Catholics have no definition of Muslim Friday prayer. Further, if we choose to substitute the phrase “Lord’s Supper” for Mass there would still remain no Protestant definition, as Protestantism is at best a nebulas group which can find no agreement on anything, much less what actually matters.

Let us address now the actual paragraph. The word ‘synaxis’ is the most problematic, but it is simply an eastern word for an assembly for liturgical purposes, which the Mass is. Further, every statement in that quotation is accurate and correct. The only problem with it is that it is incomplete; that is, if one takes it to be the full definition of the Mass (the clear implication of the preceding sentence) one is grandly mistaken. But it seems clear to me that the passage itself does not suggest that this is the only, or even the most important, of the aspects of the Mass.

Thus Paragraph 7 simply proclaims that the Mass is an assembly of the faithful, which has always been true. While it is legitimate for a priest to celebrate the Mass without a congregation, it has never been the desire of the Church for this to be the norm, or even preferred. The people have always been called for worship, to come together, to be a sacred synaxis; that is the whole aim of Sunday, to come together to the Sacrifice of the Lord.