Why does Ulysses begin with a parody of the Mass?
The novel opens with Buck Mulligan parodying the Catholic Mass: holding up his shaving bowl like a chalice, saying Latin words, and pretending to turn the lather into Christ's body. The parody returns in Circe as a Black Mass.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Several episodes. Buck Mulligan, peering into his shaving bowl.
For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns.
What it means in plain English
“Christine” plays on Christ, “ouns” on wounds. Mulligan pretends there is a problem with the white corpuscles in the transformation.
Stephen is not amused. He has left the Church but the mockery still wounds.
Literary context
Catholics believe the bread and wine become Christ's body and blood; Mulligan mocks this.
References
- Ulysses, Episodes 1 and 15
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
Continue in the Reading Room
Questions readers ask
Was it controversial?
Yes. Blasphemy was one charge against the book.
Related terms
Introibo ad altare Dei
“Introibo ad altare Dei” is Latin for “I will go up to the altar of God”, the opening words of the old Catholic Mass. Buck Mulligan intones them on the roof of the Martello tower, holding up his shaving bowl like a chalice. They are the first words spoken in Ulysses.
The first line of Ulysses
The first line of Ulysses is "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed." It opens the novel at the Martello tower in Sandycove on the morning of 16 June 1904, with Mulligan mock-celebrating Mass using his shaving bowl.
Buck Mulligan
Stephen's witty, blasphemous flatmate, a medical student. He opens the novel parodying the Catholic Mass at the tower.