What Does “Rite” Mean in the Bible?
The set way of celebrating something sacred, with words and gestures that are always the same.
It can mean
- “Roman Rite”: the way of celebrating Mass in almost all of the Catholic Church in the West.
- Others in the West: the Ambrosian, in Milan, and the Hispanic-Visigothic, in Spain.
- Those of the East: the Byzantine, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean. The Church gives them all equal honor.
- “Essential rite”: in each sacrament, what cannot be missing. In Confirmation, the anointing with chrism and its words.
Source: Catechism 1201, 1203 and 1300