History of the Holy Mass

The Holy Mass has its origin in a single, defining moment of salvation history: the Last Supper, on the night before Jesus Christ suffered and died. At this Passover meal in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, Jesus took bread and wine and gave them an entirely new meaning, instituting the sacrament that would become the centre of Christian worship for all time. Every Mass celebrated across the world today is a re-presentation of this foundational act.

The Passover context is essential for understanding the Eucharist. The Jewish Passover (Pesach) commemorated God’s liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, with the sacrificial lamb whose blood saved the firstborn from the angel of death (Exodus 12). Jesus deliberately chose this feast to institute the Eucharist, presenting himself as the new Paschal Lamb whose blood would seal a new and eternal covenant. St. Paul makes this connection explicit: “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7).

The command “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25) was not merely a request to recall a past event. The Greek word anamnesis carries a far richer meaning: a liturgical memorial that makes the saving event truly present. The earliest Christians understood this command as an instruction to continue celebrating the Eucharistic meal, and they did so from the very beginning.

The Acts of the Apostles provides our earliest glimpse of the Eucharist as a regular practice of the Christian community. From the very first days after Pentecost, the “breaking of bread” was one of the four pillars of apostolic community life.

By the time of Paul’s missionary journeys, the pattern of Sunday worship was already established. In Troas, Luke records that “on the first day of the week we came together to break bread” (Acts 20:7). This Sunday gathering — the Lord’s Day, the day of the Resurrection — became the normative day for Eucharistic worship, a practice that has continued without interruption for two thousand years.

The early Eucharistic celebrations likely followed the pattern of the Jewish synagogue service (readings and prayers) combined with a communal meal. Over time, the sacred meal was separated from the common meal (agape feast), in part because of abuses that Paul had to address at Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:17-34), where some were eating and drinking to excess while others went hungry.

The Didache, or “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” is one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament. Discovered in 1873 in a Constantinople library, this remarkable text offers a window into how the first Christians actually worshipped. Scholars date it variously from as early as 50 AD to around 120 AD, with most placing its core material in the late first century.

Chapter 14 of the Didache provides explicit instruction about the Sunday gathering: “On the Lord’s Day, gather together, break bread, and give thanks, having first confessed your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure.” The language of “sacrifice” is significant: even at this very early date, the Eucharist was understood not merely as a communal meal but as a true sacrifice, fulfilling the prophecy of Malachi 1:11 about a “pure offering” among the nations.

The Didache also stipulates that only the baptised may receive the Eucharist, showing that the discipline of communion was established from the earliest period. This requirement has remained constant throughout the history of the Church.

Around 155 AD, the philosopher and convert Justin Martyr wrote his First Apology to the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, defending Christians against charges of atheism and immorality. In chapters 65-67, Justin provides the most complete early description of the Eucharistic liturgy — and what he describes is remarkably recognisable to any Catholic who attends Mass today.

Justin is equally clear about the Real Presence: “Not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but… the food which is blessed by the prayer of his word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” This testimony from the mid-second century demolishes any claim that belief in the Real Presence was a medieval invention.

Ignatius, the third bishop of Antioch and a disciple of the Apostle John, was arrested during the persecution under Emperor Trajan and transported to Rome for execution. Along the way, he wrote seven letters to various churches that are among the most important documents of early Christianity. These letters reveal a Church that already possessed a clearly defined liturgical structure centred on the bishop.

This passage is remarkable for several reasons. It is the first known use of the term “Catholic Church” (he katholike ekklesia) in Christian literature. It also establishes the essential link between the Eucharist and the episcopal office: the valid celebration of the Eucharist requires a bishop or his delegate (a priest). This principle remains foundational to Catholic sacramental theology today.

Ignatius also provides powerful testimony to the Real Presence. Writing against the Docetists who denied that Christ had a real body, he declares: “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of his goodness, raised up again” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, ch. 7). The logic is striking: those who deny Christ’s physical incarnation also deny his physical Eucharistic presence — because the two doctrines are inseparable.