The
Church is a community of Christians joined together by the Spirit in
love. It needs to express, deepen and restore its peaceful unity before
eating the one Body of the Lord. The priest, with extended hands says aloud the prayer:
‘Lord
Jesus Christ, you said to you apostles, I leave you peace, my peace I
give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and
grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live for ever and
ever’.
Christ
offers us His peace. Asking Christ not to look on our sins indicates our
unworthiness for such a gift, and yet, through the faith of the Church
He makes us worthy through the peace and unity of His kingdom.
Then
the sign of peace is exchanged. It is an opportune time to signify
communion in peace and mutual love.
The Hebrew word for peace is ‘shalom, namely all possible prosperity, the state of a person who lives in complete harmony with nature, self and God. Since the risen Christ is the source of all peace, this gesture expresses faith that Christ is present in the congregation. It is both a call to reconciliation and unity as well as a seal, which ratifies the very meaning of church, whose members both find and pray for peace in one another.
The Hebrew word for peace is ‘shalom, namely all possible prosperity, the state of a person who lives in complete harmony with nature, self and God. Since the risen Christ is the source of all peace, this gesture expresses faith that Christ is present in the congregation. It is both a call to reconciliation and unity as well as a seal, which ratifies the very meaning of church, whose members both find and pray for peace in one another.
According to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2007), the mode of exchanging the sign of peace is left to local usage. (p.29).
For some people the sign of peace has been a distraction at Mass. For other people it was a blessing. One true story of ‘blessing’ when it was first introduced in the Mass is as follows:
‘There
was a young man who was interested in a lovely girl who attended the
Saturday evening Mass. The girl showed no particular interest in the
young man concerned. The young man asked the priest ‘would we be having
the sign of peace tonight Fr’.This
went on for some weeks and it intrigued the priest. He asked the young
man why, only to hear ‘I will sit in the seat next to her or behind her
and she will have to give me the sign of peace’. Sometime later, they were married.
‘Shalom’.
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