Bulletins

July 10, 2016

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After St. Justin Martyr, the next significant mention of the Sign of Peace comes from St. Augustine of Hippo, who explains the sign of peace as a liturgical manifestation of the petition, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgiveness given and received prior to the moment of receiving Holy Communion also gives expression to the Lord’s command to make peace with your brother before offering your sacrifice (Matthew 5,23-24).

Remember that St. Justin Martyr had described the sign of peace as taking place before the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The masterpiece by Josef Andreas Jungman, The Mass of the Roman Rite (2 vols., 1951-55), offers an account of why the placement of the sign of peace migrated from after the readings and petitions to after the Lord’s Prayer. If some scholars are correct, the change mirrors a development that took place in the Sacred Liturgy in Northern Africa, where supposedly the Lord's Prayer originally took place after the prayer of the faithful and thus was followed by the kiss. It is suggested that the Lord’s Prayer was moved to just before Holy Communion and that the Sign of Peace was moved with the Lord’s Prayer.

Pope Saint Innocent I, who reigned from 401 to 417, wrote to the bishop of Gubbio instructing him to follow the Roman custom of having the kiss at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer instead of continuing to have the sign of peace take place at the end of the petitions. At the time in Rome, the Lord's Prayer was recited after the fraction rite, immediately before Communion. Almost two centuries later Pope Saint Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome from 590 to 604, moved fraction rite so that it would follow the Lord's Prayer.

The prayer for peace:

“Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your Apostles, ‘Peace I leave you. My peace I give you.’ Look not on our sins but on the faith of the Church and graciously grant her peace and unity in accordance with your will, who live and reign for ever and ever.”

which we hear after the Lord’s Prayer and before the greeting of peace appeared, first in Germany in the 11th century. It was incorporated into the Roman Missal in 1570 by Pope Saint Pius V.

May the Lord bless His Church with peace.
May the peace of the Lord be with you always!

Fr. Christopher J. Pollard