You Never Even Call Me by My Name

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm pretty darn Catholic.  I love that when I go to Church on Sundays (or Saturdays after 4 pm) I'm surrounded by so much ornate decor and incredibly symbolic vessels, colors, sounds, and even smells.  "Smells and Bells" as we like to say (and by "we" I really just mean me, and MAYBE another 4 or 5 painfully corny people out there).  As we've seen in previous posts, even though people like to poke fun at all the little motions we do during Mass, and our Catholic Aerobics of standing, sitting, standing again, kneeling, sitting (cut to mental image of Olivia Newton John's 1981 trainwreck of a video for "Physical"......wait for it…….and......we're back!), and standing again, everything we do has a specific and meaningful name and purpose.  This post—as well as the next 3—will focus on the things we use at Mass, what they're called, and what they're used for, so we can hopefully stop calling them just the "cup" and the "bowl."

So let's start with the cup and the bowl.

Ciborium (sih-BORE-e-um) – from the Latin cibus, meaning "food" – the bowl-shaped vessel that holds the Eucharist (don't worry, we'll devote an entire post—or 6—entirely dedicated to the Eucharist) under the species (fancy word we use for the two “types” of Eucharist) of the Body of Christ.  The ciborium should be made out of a sturdy material and should be either entirely made of (preferably), or at least lined on the interior with a precious metal—normally gold. So that’s the “bowl.”  And now for the “cup,” more correctly called the…

Chalice (CHA-lihs) – from the Latin calix, meaning “cup” – the goblet-shaped vessel that holds the Eucharist under the species of the Blood of Christ.  Like the ciborium, the chalice should preferably be made of a precious metal, but at least gilded (another fancy word meaning “lined with gold”) on the interior.

Those are the two “biggies” for this post, because those are the two objects most noticed by the congregation.  But there are a few more Eucharist-related objects to talk about today, like the…

Paten (PA-ten) – from the Latin patina, meaning “small, broad plate” – this could be one of two objects, but with similar purposes.  The first kind of paten is the small gold (or silver) plate which is used to hold the host (usually a single, larger-sized one) during the Mass.  The other kind of paten—which is not as widely used anymore—is also a small gold (or silver) plate, but this kind has a handle and is held by an altar server under the hands or chin of someone receiving the Eucharist.  This is to ensure that should either the priest or Eucharist-partaker be the clumsiest person in history, the Eucharist will fall onto the paten, rather than on the floor. 

Now, if you’ve ever been sick, or visited a sick person who has had someone bring the Eucharist to them—like if they’re in the hospital and weren’t able to get to Mass on Sunday—the person who brought the Eucharist (hopefully) carried it in a…

Pyx (pihx) – from the Latin pyxis, meaning “small box” – a small, round (precious) metal container used to transport the Eucharist.

There’s also the Chalice’s buddy, called the…

Purificator (PURE-ih-fih-kate-er) – from the Latin purificare, meaning “small, 3-legged goat” (either that or “to make clean”…I can never remember) – a square, white cloth, about the size of a dining table napkin, which is used to wipe the rim of the chalice after someone receives the Blood of Christ.  These are also used in the purification of the communion vessels after Mass (which we’ll talk about 3 posts from now).  There’s also a cool little set of coverings for the chalice.  The first part is called the…

Chalice Veil – a small, square cloth that sits directly on the chalice and covers it before and after its use during the Mass.  Traditionally, this veil is supposed to be the same color as the priest’s chasuble (which we’ll talk about 2 posts from now), but generally, if you see one used these days, it’ll probably just be white.  The chalice veil has a partner, which is called the…

Pall (sounds like the name “Paul”) – a small stiff board covered with linen (and typically very ornately decorated), which covers the chalice after the wine (which will become the Blood of Christ) has been poured into it, to prevent random junk from falling in it.  For one thing, it’s pretty irreverent to have stuff falling into the Blood of Christ all through Mass.  Then it’s an even more wide-spread issue if you’d have people drinking from the chalice that who knows what had been falling in for the past 15 minutes.  I mean, can you imagine if you were in an older church that had asbestos falling from the ceiling?  People would start drinking asbestos, and get sick, then the church would have lawsuits, and it would just be one big mess after another (sorry, I can get pretty far-fetched tangent-happy sometimes).  So all in all, the pall=good. 

So if we’re going to have wine, we need something to put it in until it’s time to pour it into the chalice.  We can go two ways here.  We can use one of the…

Cruets (CREW-its) – from the Old French crue, meaning “pitcher” – metal or (more often) glass pitchers used to hold the water and wine for the Mass.  However, since cruets tend to be on the smaller side, and churches generally need a good bit of wine to have enough Jesus to go around (don’t panic, we’ll explain what that means later, too), most churches use a…

Flagon (FLAG-un) – from the Latin flasca, meaning “flask” – a larger bottle with a handle, spout, and usually a stopper which holds the wine before pouring it into the chalice(s) at Mass.

Now, if you were to look on the Altar during Mass after all this stuff mentioned above had been placed on it, you’d see most of it sitting on a…

Corporal (CORE-prull) – from the Latin corporalis, meaning “of or related to the body” – a larger, white, square cloth on which all the Eucharistic vessels are placed during Mass.

So that’s pretty much the list of vessels and objects used in Mass that are directly related to the Eucharist.  They all have pretty formal names, and pretty much all come from Latin.  So the question is, “Why don’t we just call them the ‘cup’ and the ‘bowl’”?  Well, the really cool thing about the Catholic Church is that we didn’t just spring up 2 months ago when a little group of people got upset at what our pastor at another church said or did.  We’ve been around for 2000 years now…yes, TWO THOUSAND YEARS!  Jesus started the Catholic Church when he commissioned his 12 apostles to go out into the world and preach tell the Good News to all the world, and put Peter in place as head of his church (it’s all in the Bible—we didn’t make this stuff up).  Since the earlier days of the church, up until the Second Vatican Council of 1962 (we’ll talk about councils of the church later), the Mass was all said in Latin, since the Church was pretty big in the Roman Empire.  So most names come from some sort of Latin origin.  It’s really cool that we have these names, because it reminds us of our roots and our rich history.  Let’s be proud of our history and continue to learn the symbolism and tradition of our awesome Faith.