Part XII: The Sign of Peace

"Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day."

There is a profound humility in this prayer, because it recognizes that peace can only come from God, that only He can free us from evil. Our own efforts to bring about peace are of no use unless they spring from Him, and are carried out for His sake. Christ is the prince of peace, yet just as His kingdom is not of this world, His peace is not of this world--it is not the sort of peace made by treaties between worldly rulers, but the peace that dwells in the heart of the Christian who trusts in God--even in the midst of war and devastation. The martyrs knew the peace of Christ as they were led into the arena, and the violence of the world could not take it from them.

Does this mean that the Christian should despair of peace in the world around him? Certainly not! But he must know that even worldly peace must begin with Christ s reign in the hearts of Christian men, and he must know that the whole world will not be truly at peace until Christ's scepter rules over it when He comes in glory. In this prayer, the priest asks God to keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety; to save us from the violence and confusion that are the consequences of sin in the world--as we wait with joyful hope for the true peace that will descend like dew from the heavens at Christ's coming.

"For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for ever!"

Christ it is who can grant us peace, because it is He who rules over all things. Before Christ's kingdom, all the powers of the world are as nothing. The Christian has nothing to fear from any earthly power or threat, because all the kingdoms of the world are in the hands of God. Christ can deliver us from any worldly peril, and if He chooses to leave us to face the sufferings of this world, it is only so that our faith might be purified from the sense of self-sufficiency with which comfort and luxury may encumber it.

"Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, I leave you peace, my peace I give you"

As we are comforted by Our Lord's gift of peace to us, let us not forget that when Christ said those words, (in John 14:27,) he added, "not as the world giveth, do I give unto you." Our peace comes from our communion with Christ, a communion which is the Church, and which can not exist outside of her. Every Christian is a sinner, and every man is stained by sin, but through our communion with Christ in His Church, we have hope for both Christ's peace and the forgiveness of our sins. Thus it is right that when we seek peace, we should ask the Lord to look "not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church." Our own deeds bring division and war; Christ, in his Church, brings unity and peace. We rightly ask Him to give peace and strength to His Church.

"The peace of the Lord be with you always" 

If Christ's peace flows to us through the Church, there is nowhere that it washes over us more than in the mass. As the priest opens his hands and speaks these words, we can imagine Christ's peace, like clean water, gushing forth from the altar where our Lord lies; the altar that is for now the center of the world, the place where heaven and earth meet in the person of Jesus Christ. Christ's body lying upon the altar is as an open floodgate between heaven and earth, and all heavenly grace and benediction flow through it. It remains only for us to drink from that crystal stream, for God is offering us everything good, in greater abundance than we could ever receive. His peace, the true peace that grounds both body and soul, and lifts them up to heaven, is poured out for us, like the blood and water flowing from His side upon the cross, and we need fear no evil of this world.

"Let us offer each other the sign of peace"

Every faithful believer receives Christ's peace, according to his capacity and the measure of his openness to Christ. This peace is a tangible sign of our communion with Christ in the Church, a communion that binds all of us together because it binds each of us to Christ. In offering a sign of Christ's peace to each other we represent that reality--that we are all part of the household of faith, the Church, founded upon the apostles, governed by Christ's vicar, our pope, and uniting all true Christians down through our own day. Having received Christ's peace, how can we not be at peace with one another? How can we not offer that peace to the world? Made one in the peace of Christ, we can abjure every falsehood, and keep far from every evil. It may be that through living a Christian life in Christ's peace we bring worldly division, but if we are truly following Christ and not our own wills, it will be a sign of Christ's peace fracturing the violence of this world.

©Theodore Book, 2007, reprinted with permission