A-Z of the Mass: Qurbana

What on earth, you may well be asking, does Qurbana mean? Admittedly, the letter Q did present something of a challenge when we were selecting subjects for our A-Z of the Mass, and we ended up casting our net wider than 'Mass' in the stricter sense of the celebration of the Eucharist in the rites of the Latin Church: just as, for example, the Eucharistic celebration of Byzantine Christians is customarily known by a different name, the Divine Liturgy, so the Holy Qurbana (Syriac for ‘sacrifice’ or ‘offering’) is the name given to the celebration of the Eucharist in Churches of the Syriac tradition.

Because of the predominance of the Latin Church, and its use of the Roman Rite, which is, of course, the rite of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, it is very easy for us to forget that several other Churches, with different liturgical traditions, are in communion with the Pope, and so form part of the Catholic Church. In fact, there are 22 distinct Eastern Catholic Churches, the majority of which belong to the Byzantine liturgical tradition; besides this, and the Syriac tradition already mentioned (which has two branches, Eastern and Western), there are also Armenian, Coptic, and Ethiopian Catholics.

What are the differences, then, between the Mass which most of us are used to and the Eucharistic liturgies of the Eastern Catholic Churches? It is difficult to generalise over such a broad range of traditions, but suffice it to say that, on a superficial level, Eastern Eucharistic celebrations can seem very different indeed. The texts of the liturgy differ widely, as do the arrangement of the church and sanctuary, and the vestments of the priests and ministers. The Preparation of the Gifts, for example, varies greatly, happening at different stages in different rites, though often involving a procession to the altar at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Many Eastern Churches use leavened bread for the Eucharist, and the manner of receiving Holy Communion can vary quite widely: the Byzantine custom, for example, is for the laity to receive a small piece of the Host, soaked in the Precious Blood, on a spoon, while in the Syro-Malabar rite communicants receive the Host in the hand and drink from the Chalice afterwards, much like the contemporary practice of Latin Catholics, at least in England.

Behind the many outward differences, however, we can see a common structure to all Eucharistic liturgies, which may be outlined very broadly as the gathering of the community; the Liturgy of the Word focused on readings from Scripture and culminating in the Gospel; the Liturgy of the Eucharist, at the heart of which is the Eucharistic Prayer, during which the elements are consecrated; the Communion rites, during which priest and people receive Holy Communion; and thanksgiving and dismissal at the end.

This, of course, is unsurprising, because, despite all the apparent differences, any celebration of the Eucharist, whether it be called Mass, Divine Liturgy, or Holy Qurbana, whatever the particularities of the rite used, is a celebration of the central sacrament of our Christian life, in which Christ’s Body and Blood, offered to the Father once for all upon the Cross, are made present for us, and we, the Christian faithful, are invited, in Holy Communion, to be united with that Sacrifice. This central truth, which is conveyed in different ways in the different Eucharistic liturgies, according to the different cultures in which they originated, is what unites Catholics of whatever rite, all over the world: ‘we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread’ (1 Cor 10: 17).