The burse is a small square bag of sorts that contains the corporal, which is the square linen cloth on which rests the Sacred Host during the Liturgy of the Eucharist (the second half of the Mass) – hence the name, which is connected to corpus, which means “body”. The burse does harken back to the early Church in its similarity to the linen bags in which Deacons and/or ordained acolytes would carry the Blessed Sacrament to the sick (which is also still the use for another kind of burse that holds a pyx, for exactly that purpose). Today, as you will see, the burse is usually made of the same decorative fabric as the vestments for Mass.