(music) A mass, in the sense of a composition setting several sung parts of the liturgic service (most often chosen from the ordinary parts Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Agnus Dei and/or Sanctus) to music, notably when the text in Latin is used (as long universally prescribed by Rome)
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Origin of Missa
From the Latin phrase Ite, missa est (“Go, it is the dismissal/sending”), reinterpreted as naming the ceremony: "Go, it is the Mass", or "Go, the Mass is over"; from perfect passive participle missus (“dismissal, sending”), from mittere (“send”, verb).
From
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Missa Sentence Examples
His most important works were the Missa hispanica, which he exchanged for his diploma at Stockholm, a Mass in D minor, a Lauda Sion, a set of graduals, forty-two of which are reprinted in Diabelli's Ecclesiasticon, three symphonies (1785), and a string quintet in C major which has been erroneously attributed to Joseph Haydn.
The same interest led to the division of the services into two general parts, which became known ultimately as the missa, eatechumenorum and the miss y fidelium, - that is, the more public service of prayer, praise and preaching open to all, including the catechumens or candidates for Church membership, and the private service for the administration of the eucharist, open only to full members of the Church in good and regular standing.
Theterm mass, which survivesin Candlemas, Christmas, Michaelmas, is from the Latin missa, which was in the 3rd century a technical term for the dismissal of any lay meeting, e.g.
This was the missa of the catechumens.
The rest of the rite was called missa fidelium, because only the initiated remained.
