Midnight Mass
Led by one of the highest Lancea Sanctum officials in a city, a Midnight Mass is simply that: a prayer service to God, held in the dark of night. Some truly devout Sanctified domains hold such a mass several times a week, but they occur only once or twice a month in most Sanctified-dominated cities. All covenant members in the region are expected to attend on at least a semi-regular basis. Many other rites, rituals and celebrations, often including Creation Rites and Anointings, occur at Midnight Mass.
Kindred devoted to The Lancea Sanctum are bound by various obligations to the covenant. Chief among these obligations is attendance of Midnight Mass.
Ultimately, the Sanctified Mass isn’t too far removed from a standard Catholic Mass (though this may vary among creeds other than the Monachal and Westminster), but a few prominent differences obviously exist. Among the similarities, however, are the reliance upon a single shepherd of the ceremony (usually a Bishop, though should one not be available, a Priest will do) who leads the congregation through recitation of the liturgy of Longinus. The Kindred parishioners sit in attendance while the officiate reads from The Testament of Longinus, sometimes in Greek or Latin, though many Priests and Bishops tonight will read from a translated text, speaking to the congregation in the vernacular. An occasional liturgy will be read in Turkish or Coptic, depending on the orthodoxy or denomination of the Bishop.
The ritus offers much pomp and circumstance: smoldering incense, flasks of blood, rote memorandum chanting of parts of The Testament of Longinus, call-and-response. The congregation recites certain passages of the text with the Bishop, and maintains a contemplative silence for the rest of the rite. The Bishop leading the ceremony is attended by Priests or abecedarians who perform any secondary functions necessary to complete the ritual.
As expected, the ritual diverges from any standard Catholic Mass. For one, while Catholics believe that the Eucharistic wine they drink becomes the blood of Christ during the act — the Sanctified drink actual Vitae. The source of the blood isn’t particularly important (though some Bishops demand to have the blood of pious mortals). What matters is that the blood transubstantiates from a mortal Vitae to carry the damnation of the Dark Prophet inside the crucible of the vampire’s flesh. When a faithful Sanctified steps upon the dais and takes a swallow from the proffered cup, he believes that the blood literally becomes sanguine evidence of God’s own judgment due to the acts of the Dark Prophet. In the Blood, one finds faith.
The liturgical readings differ quite prominently from any Catholic Mass, as well. The Testament, while formulated and structured much like the Bible (though significantly shorter), posits quite a dissimilar message. The Bishop reads little of salvation, and instead spends much of the reading exulting the predatory instincts carried down through the Blood. The passages indicate the purity of the Dark Prophet’s teachings, and by extension, the covenant’s adherence to them.
Many Bishops will use the end of a Midnight Mass to sermonize. Such a sermon is likely to be a lecture against the congregation’s own indiscretions, especially if devotion is seen as flagging in any way. The Damned might hear homilies chiding them for excessive viciousness or for needless association with members of other covenants. Some Bishops may choose more positive messages for the congregation, congratulations and thanksgiving for deeds well done, such as ousting rival influence, perhaps, or routing heretics from within the ranks of the covenant itself. In some austere parishes, though, Bishops and Priests are content to let the Midnight Mass speak for itself, with no sermons to accompany readings from the Testament or the Catechism.
The conclusion of a Midnight Mass occasionally takes the form of a separate Communion ceremony, in which the Eucharistic Vitae is taken after the Mass and not before. In some such practices of Communion, one or more mortals are gagged and restrained on altars at the front of the church, and the Kindred drink from wounds cut in them by a deacon with a ceremonial Knife. In other practices, upon the conclusion of the Priest’s sermon, each worshiper walks to the altar, kneels before the Priest to receive the blessing, and then partakes as normal from a chalice or other standard vessel. The frequency with which Communion ceremonies are held varies from domain to domain, but these variant rituals are often performed more frequently in domains where the covenant isn’t dominant or even particularly strong. In such cases, the Communion ceremony is a powerful symbolic tool for non-Sanctified who wish to convert. The Dammitic Creed does not have a Communion ceremony, though it certainly practices its own version of the Midnight Mass otherwise normally.
When finished, Midnight Mass is sometimes followed by other ritae, be they Apostolica (Anointing is the most common to follow a ceremonial Mass), or Ecclesia. Other times, the covenant members are left to their own devices once Mass has concluded.
Midnight Mass almost universally takes place weekly, most often at the stroke of midnight between Saturday and Sunday nights. Vampires of other covenants are technically not allowed to attend, though many Bishops will encourage or permit it in a conversion effort.
Kindred devoted to The Lancea Sanctum are bound by various obligations to the covenant. Chief among these obligations is attendance of Midnight Mass.
Ultimately, the Sanctified Mass isn’t too far removed from a standard Catholic Mass (though this may vary among creeds other than the Monachal and Westminster), but a few prominent differences obviously exist. Among the similarities, however, are the reliance upon a single shepherd of the ceremony (usually a Bishop, though should one not be available, a Priest will do) who leads the congregation through recitation of the liturgy of Longinus. The Kindred parishioners sit in attendance while the officiate reads from The Testament of Longinus, sometimes in Greek or Latin, though many Priests and Bishops tonight will read from a translated text, speaking to the congregation in the vernacular. An occasional liturgy will be read in Turkish or Coptic, depending on the orthodoxy or denomination of the Bishop.
The ritus offers much pomp and circumstance: smoldering incense, flasks of blood, rote memorandum chanting of parts of The Testament of Longinus, call-and-response. The congregation recites certain passages of the text with the Bishop, and maintains a contemplative silence for the rest of the rite. The Bishop leading the ceremony is attended by Priests or abecedarians who perform any secondary functions necessary to complete the ritual.
As expected, the ritual diverges from any standard Catholic Mass. For one, while Catholics believe that the Eucharistic wine they drink becomes the blood of Christ during the act — the Sanctified drink actual Vitae. The source of the blood isn’t particularly important (though some Bishops demand to have the blood of pious mortals). What matters is that the blood transubstantiates from a mortal Vitae to carry the damnation of the Dark Prophet inside the crucible of the vampire’s flesh. When a faithful Sanctified steps upon the dais and takes a swallow from the proffered cup, he believes that the blood literally becomes sanguine evidence of God’s own judgment due to the acts of the Dark Prophet. In the Blood, one finds faith.
The liturgical readings differ quite prominently from any Catholic Mass, as well. The Testament, while formulated and structured much like the Bible (though significantly shorter), posits quite a dissimilar message. The Bishop reads little of salvation, and instead spends much of the reading exulting the predatory instincts carried down through the Blood. The passages indicate the purity of the Dark Prophet’s teachings, and by extension, the covenant’s adherence to them.
Many Bishops will use the end of a Midnight Mass to sermonize. Such a sermon is likely to be a lecture against the congregation’s own indiscretions, especially if devotion is seen as flagging in any way. The Damned might hear homilies chiding them for excessive viciousness or for needless association with members of other covenants. Some Bishops may choose more positive messages for the congregation, congratulations and thanksgiving for deeds well done, such as ousting rival influence, perhaps, or routing heretics from within the ranks of the covenant itself. In some austere parishes, though, Bishops and Priests are content to let the Midnight Mass speak for itself, with no sermons to accompany readings from the Testament or the Catechism.
The conclusion of a Midnight Mass occasionally takes the form of a separate Communion ceremony, in which the Eucharistic Vitae is taken after the Mass and not before. In some such practices of Communion, one or more mortals are gagged and restrained on altars at the front of the church, and the Kindred drink from wounds cut in them by a deacon with a ceremonial Knife. In other practices, upon the conclusion of the Priest’s sermon, each worshiper walks to the altar, kneels before the Priest to receive the blessing, and then partakes as normal from a chalice or other standard vessel. The frequency with which Communion ceremonies are held varies from domain to domain, but these variant rituals are often performed more frequently in domains where the covenant isn’t dominant or even particularly strong. In such cases, the Communion ceremony is a powerful symbolic tool for non-Sanctified who wish to convert. The Dammitic Creed does not have a Communion ceremony, though it certainly practices its own version of the Midnight Mass otherwise normally.
When finished, Midnight Mass is sometimes followed by other ritae, be they Apostolica (Anointing is the most common to follow a ceremonial Mass), or Ecclesia. Other times, the covenant members are left to their own devices once Mass has concluded.
Midnight Mass almost universally takes place weekly, most often at the stroke of midnight between Saturday and Sunday nights. Vampires of other covenants are technically not allowed to attend, though many Bishops will encourage or permit it in a conversion effort.
Related Organizations
System: Midnight Mass
This ritual requires no mechanical system, as it doesn’t usually confer any sort of actual supernatural benefit to the congregation. In some instances — during a particularly notable or moving liturgy, perhaps — the Storyteller may warrant the regaining of a single point of Willpower upon the conclusion of the ceremony. If the Storyteller decides that the transubstantiation is true, a parishioner gains a single Vitae when partaking of Communion, even though she takes only the smallest sip during the ceremony.
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments