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MASS MATTER SACRIFICE
The MASS is the SACRIFICE of the New Law in which Christ, through the ministry of the priest, offers Himself to God in an unbloody manner under the appearances of bread and wine. (a) The name MASS comes from the Latin word Missa meaning dismissal.
"What is a sacrifice?" The answer given is "A sacrifice is the offering of a victim by a priest to God alone, and the destruction of it in some way to knowledge that he is the creator of all things." From the Baltimore catechism we can conclude that the mass is the offering of Christ by a priest.
The word "mass" is derived from the Latin missa.
"lump, quantity, size," late 14c., from Old French masse "lump, heap, pile; crowd, large amount; ingot, bar" (11c.), and directly from Latin massa "kneaded dough, lump, that which adheres together like dough," probably from Greek maza "barley cake, lump, mass, ball," related to massein "to knead," from PIE root *mag- "to knead" (cf. Lithuanian minkyti "to knead," see macerate.
