A Healing Peace: The Sign of Peace at Mass

‘Twas the Day Before Thanksgiving…
Jane was dreading her family’s Thanksgiving dinner. A few weeks ago she and her older sister, Becky, had gotten into an argument. It started out innocent enough, but quickly escalated, and before they knew it they were drumming up grievances from the past, even digging into childhood offenses in order to bolster their own positions. It got to the point that their husbands got involved. Jane herself had said some pretty offensive things. Becky had called Jane some fairly colorful names. In hindsight it was pointless. What had started as a minor quibble now threatened to tear her family apart at the seams. Unless she was able to extend an olive branch to Becky, this Thanksgiving dinner was going to be the most awkward meal ever… and Christmas would be pure torture.
 
Throughout this series of articles on the Mass, we’ve focused a good deal of our attention on the fact that when we enter into the Mass, we enter into God’s family story – which, as members of God’s family, is also our story. We not only hear about this family story, but we become part of it in very real and concrete ways.
 
Every family has tensions. Every family has conflicts. Sometimes those conflicts are between individuals. Sometimes they are between groups. Before a family can sit down to enjoy a family banquet together, there must be peace and reconciliation between her members. That’s what the Sign of Peace is all about.

Peace I Leave…
Before we are invited to the altar to receive Communion – to share our family banquet – there is a moment that many folks misinterpret as being “disruptive,” and, in a certain sense, it’s meant to be.
 
Shortly after we pray the Our Father together, the priest says:
 
“Lord Jesus Christ,
Who said to your Apostles:
Peace I leave you, my peace I give you;
Look not on our sins,
But on the faith of your Church,
And graciously grant her peace and unity
In accordance with your will.”
 
After this prayer we’re invited to extend to one another a sign of peace – a handshake, a hug, a kiss on the forehead. The Church recognizes that the particular sign will vary according to custom. For the sake of order, we’re asked to share this sign only with those nearest to us.
 
Why do many of us experience this moment in the Mass as disruptive and oddly out of place? Perhaps in some parishes it’s because the Sign of Peace is reduced to little more than a meet-n-greet between friends, and often feels more like a Sign of Chaos. This is truly unfortunate, and completely misses the point of this beautiful gesture.

But there is a deep spiritual reason that this moment is deliberately disruptive and feels out of place. It comes straight from the teaching of Jesus himself in the Sermon on the Mount. Let’s have a look…

Sacrifice Interrupted…
In chapter 5 of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus gives us a very challenging teaching on anger: “I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment” (Matt. 5:22). Jesus even equates anger harbored against another with murder! Why?
 
Anger makes us say and do things that hurt others and destroy our relationships. We’ve all had the experience of doing or saying something out of anger and regretting it later. Maybe you said something insulting to your sister. Maybe you spread rumors about a coworker or classmate. Maybe you brought some old skeletons out of a friend’s closet and put them on public display. These sorts of actions are a type of character assassination, and it’s not uncommon for the victim never to fully recover. But they don’t just damage the victim’s reputation. They also damage relationships, and have been known to destroy a good many families!
 
This is why Jesus went on to say: “If you bring your gift to the altar and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5:23-24).
 
Notice how disruptive this action is! Imagine you’re an ancient Israelite. You’re standing at the altar in the great Temple, knife poised over your best ewe lamb ready to make the required sacrifice to God. Then suddenly you remember calling your older brother an idiot. Quickly you set the knife down, leave the lamb tied up on the altar, run out of the Temple, find your brother, and apologize to him thus healing your relationship. Only then do you go back to the Temple and finish the sacrifice you’d started… probably several hours earlier.
 
This is exactly what we are doing with the Sign of Peace. Our sacrifice is on the altar, then suddenly we’re called to a moment of disruptive realism! We recognize that we ourselves have often been the cause of fractures in God’s family. And so we’re called to leave our sacrifice on the altar, reach out to our brothers and sisters in Christ around us, and seek mercy from them, offering them also Christ’s mercy in return.
 
So the next time we come to the Sign of Peace at Mass, let yourself really feel the disruptive nature of this gesture. Then reach out to those in your immediate surroundings and offer them the Peace of Christ, which is the Holy Spirit! Only then will you experience Holy Communion as a true communion not only between yourself and the Lord (which it is), but also a true communion between yourself and your brothers and sisters in Christ (which it also is).