Signum Pacis

Signum Pacis - Optimal or Optional?

This Question to be Answered came in from a concerned and outraged left wing parish priest from the other side of the diocese.

Rev dear Rev: Whose idea was it to relegate the Sign of Peace during the Novus Ordo Mass into an optional little Rite designed only for post-covid era celebrations - why is this important sign just merely regarded and relegated to the Optional rather than Optimal?

In the movie Excalibur there is a scene in which Merlin the Magician appears at a dance at the castle when the good times are rolling for Arthur, and says, "The doom of men is that they forget." And this becomes a prophecy of some foreboding to come in the future for the happy little paradise that Arthur and his princes have begotten and made for themselves. Lancelot to come and then Mordred, the great sorrows in the future life of the king. Merlin speaks the prophecy because he can see that amidst all this rejoicing today there will yet be a different story in years to come. Similarly, people forget how lovely it was when the Signum Pacis was introduced in the 1970s - it was a breath of fresh air from the Princes of Bel-Air so to speak. An innovation in the novus ordo liturgy that was in fact commanded by the original Christ - if your brother has something against you. So over the period of the eventual reform of the liturgy it was decided that the divine gospels should speak anew for themselves to the modern generations of men, and that people should be encouraged to settle their differences if there had been a sundering or an argument BEFORE coming to holy communion with the Source of all koinonia in the community, namely Christos - that was the thinking in the new era. And that people should abstain from holy communion while a grudge or an argument or a separation lasted with another fellow christian. Paralysing the community? Maybe but the intention was sound and laudable. But also, those that criticised the gesture of peace, a kiss of peace in France, as adding something banal and human to the Sacred Rites, forget that when this Ritual was introduced to the parishes in Britain in the 1970s, it single-handedly accounted for the principle reason why thousands of anglicans came over to the lovely sincere fellowship they experienced in the Catholic Weekend Liturgy - lovely. In a word this was the gesture that made thousands of anglicans swim the Tiber or cross the Styx whichever one prefers, and there were a number of reasons for this:

- The Sign was friendly;

- The Sign was informal - anglicans resented the poshness and artificial formality of the ASB;

- The Sign effectively broke the ice between the parishioners if there were some ice;

- The Sign also broke the ice between the churches as more and more anglicans attended the catholic masses with their spouses;

- The Sign was even more explicit as a Kiss of Peace in Glorious France;

- Catholic clergy were joyous at it;

- Catholic celebrants introduced the French Kiss of Peace to weddings, to a chorus of approval;

- In sum catholic churches in the 1970s and 1980s became hugely popular with anglicans;

- This was too hot to handle for most purists and strict rigorists of the Rigatoni kind, but it worked;

- Gargantuan amounts of converts then poured into the front doors in catholic parishes.

The Signum Pacis worked like a dream - and nobody expected it to be so important, yet it had the meritorious effect of reminding everybody among anglicans that worship need not be so posh, that Christ was the Founder of Christianity, and that reconciliation with neighbours was important BEFORE eucharistic communion at the altar rails. So in sum, the Signum Pacis was an Optimal, and not just an Optional.