Ite, missa est

Ite, missa est are the concluding Latin words addressed to the people in the Mass of the Roman Rite, as well as the Lutheran Divine Service. Until the reforms of 1962, at Masses without the Gloria, Benedicamus Domino was said instead. The response of the people (or, in the Tridentine Mass, of the servers at Low Mass, the choir at Solemn Mass) is Deo gratias ("thanks be to God").

In the 19th century, it was common to explain the phrase elliptically, with the feminine participle of mittere, as in Ite, missa est [congregatio] "Go, it [viz., the assembly] is dismissed". However, according to Fortescue (1910), the word missa as used in this phrase is not the feminine participle (Classical Latin missa), but rather a Late Latin form of what would be in classical Latin, meaning "dismissal", for a translation of "Go, the dismissal is made".

Chupungco (1999) noted that "some persons have attempted" to "sublimate" the straightforward meaning of the phrase into an interpretation of missio "dismissal" as "mission" (as in, "go and be a missionary"), but judges this interpretation as "without foundation".

The connection between the meaning "dismissal" and the "deeper" meaning of "mission" was also discussed by Benedict XVI (without making an etymological claim) in Sacramentum caritatis (2007): "In antiquity, missa simply meant 'dismissal'. In Christian usage, however, it gradually took on a deeper meaning. The word 'dismissal' has come to imply a 'mission'. These few words succinctly express the missionary nature of the Church".

The ecclesiastical Latin noun missa "" is derived from the missa in this liturgical formula. Historically, however, there have been other explanations of the noun missa, i.e. as not derived from the formula ite, missa est. Fortescue (1910) cites older, "fanciful" etymological explanations, notably a latinization of Hebrew matstsâh (מַצָּה) "unleavened bread; oblation", a derivation favoured in the 16th century by Reuchlin and Luther. Already Du Cange (1678) reports "various opinions on the origin" of the noun missa "mass".

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