[TruthTalk] Fw: -mas

[Lance Muir]

----- Original Message ----- From: Debbie Sawczak To: Lance Muir Sent: December 25, 2005 22:03 Subject: -mas Having been reminded by you of the TT archives, I decided to take a look today.   Marlin (?) is confusing things when he talks about Christmas. It is a common mistake to confuse the meaning of a word with the meaning of its etymon. It's true that the word mass comes from the Latin missa, dismissal (from mittere to send away), but not because the mass is itself a dismissal! The word missa was salient in the Latin liturgy because it comes in the last line, in which the gathering is dismissed; the people listened for it, as it was the signal to leave. It has nothing to do with Christ being "dismissed". (Perhaps Marlin and others are being influenced by the use of "exodus" in certain NT passages to refer to Christ's death.)   The combining form -mas represents another step and just means a feast/festival in honour of person or thing X, celebrated with a mass. Hence not only Christmas, but Michaelmas, Martinmas, candlemas, allhallowmas, etc. Obviously, it cannot mean "dismissal of X" in these compounds. In fact, if Marlin were correct, you would expect Christmas to be the name for every mass. Christmas is the feast/festival in honour of Christ (on the occasion of his birth), celebrated with a mass. Merry Christmas doesn't mean "merry death of Christ"--although if it did, I suppose it would be much the same idea as "Good Friday".     D