"A Crisis of Meaning in the Sign of Peace"

Last fall Michael P. Foley wrote a very interesting article on the history and current practice of "Sign of Peace" in the liturgy, which used to be a rite of the "Holy Kiss." His article is entitled "A Crisis of Meaning in the Sign of Peace" (originally published in the Advent/Christmas 2007 issue of Latin Mass, and reproduced by permission of the publishers at Scripture and Catholic Tradition, March 5, 2008). Although the practice in most American Catholic churches has become fairly standardized, it wasn't that long ago that the matter was experienced as a point of tension, at least by some. I recall a friend's recollection of a Mass at a Newman Center at a college in California some twenty years ago at which there was present a little old lady who was a daily Mass attendee there, where she never failed to make a petition for the souls in Purgatory during the Prayer of the Faithful. At this particular Mass, some students came waltzing up to her with open arms to embrace her during the Sign of Peace, and, to their horror, she abruptly responded: "F___ off!" The Sign of Peace in the liturgy has elicited, then, some less-than-peaceful responses in recent memory. Why is this? Has the Sign of Peace undergone a change of meaning in our time? What is the history of this component in the Mass? Here are some excerpts from professor Foley's article to get you started, but you can read the article in its entirety at the above-linked site:

The rite of peace, which was restored to all Masses in the 1970 Missal, has fallen onto hard times. Though some Catholics wholeheartedly praise it as the "highpoint of the Mass" (as one of my priest friends has been told several times by his parishioners), others view the matter differently. The 2005 Eucharistic Synod worries that the greeting has assumed "a dimension that could be problematic," as "when it is too prolonged" or "causes confusion." In Sacramentum Caritatis Pope Benedict XVI speaks of the peace becoming "exaggerated" by emotion and causing "a certain distraction" before Holy Communion. Consequently, the Supreme Pontiff not only calls for "greater restraint" in the gesture of peace but has even raised the question as to whether it should be moved to another part of the Mass.

How could such an ostensibly bright hallmark of the new liturgy become the object of such abuse? To answer this, we must reexamine the unique but all to hidden meaning of the kiss of peace in the Roman rite.

The Holy Kiss

The "holy kiss," as Saint Paul calls it, has almost always been an important component of the Mass. Originally the kiss--which was a full, lip-on-lip act--was given to members of the same and opposite sex; but by the late second century Church Fathers like Clement of Alexandria were complaining that a lascivious element between men and women was creeping into the proceedings. This problem was solved by segregating the sexes to different sides of the nave, a practice that was till being recommended as late as the 1917 Code of Canon Law.



[Pope Benedict XVI and Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople at Ravenna, December, 2007]
Similarly, like most other kinds of kissing, the liturgical kiss was seen as a very intimate gesture, the kind of thing one would only do within one's family. Hence, the kiss was not given to "non-family members" such as heretics or catechumens. This principle was relatively easy to osbserve, since the early Church dismissed non-initiates after the homily, before the kiss was given.

The kiss remained a vital part of the liturgy until the mid-1200s, when it began to fall into disuse, and no one is certain why. The Church tried to sustain the rite by using a paten-like object called a pax-brede....

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