Bulletins

July 17, 2016

Download the Bulletin as a PDF

Josef Jungmann, cited earlier as one the foremost experts on liturgical history, goes into great detail about the kiss of peace in The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origin and Development. Below is an excerpt from pages 323-325:

In Gregory the Great's time the kiss of peace was regarded as a natural preparation for Communion. A group of monks, threatened by shipwreck, gave each other the kiss of peace and then received the Sacrament which they carried with them. The same opinion predominated at this period also outside the area of the Roman liturgy. Sophronius (d. 638) pictures St. Mary of Egypt giving the kiss of peace to the aged monk who brings her the Mysteries, whereupon she receives the Body of the Lord. In the arrangement for Communion of the sick in the Celtic Church, the Book of Dimma, about 80, stipulates: Hic [after the Our Father and the embolism belonging to it have been recited] pax datur ei et dicis: Pax et communicatio sanctorum tuorum, Christe Jesu, sit semper nobiscum. R. Amen, whereupon the Eucharist is given.

In the Carolingian area also the same succession (of kiss of peace and distribution of Communion) is found both at Communion of the sick and at public service. (The 9th century Ordo for the Sick from Lorsch, edited by C. de Clerq: Eph. liturg., 44 (1930), 103, contains the rubric: Hic pax datur et communicatio and then the formula: Pax et commwzicatio corporis et sanguinis D. n. J. C. conservet animam tuam in vitam ceternam.) Indeed the kiss is often restricted to the communicants. The canones of Theodore of Canterbury, in one version (eighth century), contain the rule: qui non communicant, nee accedant ad pacem neque ad osculum in ecclesia. The rule was also known in the Carolingian Church, but there, alongside the severe regulation, a milder interpretation also appeared, which did not make restriction so narrow. Nevertheless, at least in monasteries, it was still the rule even in the year 1000 that on Communion days, and only on these, the brethren received the pax. This was true in England as well as on the continent. The kiss of peace was a pre-condition for Communion, or at least a fitting preparation for it, and in reverse, the deacon and subdeacon at high Mass, who were to receive the pax were for a long time obliged also to receive Holy Communion.

In fact, amongst the Cistercians there was a regulation even for private Mass that the server receive pax and Communion each time, until in 1437 Eugene IV rescinded this obligation of the ministri altaris as dangerous. But even so, the connection between kiss of peace and Communion survived for a long time.

May the peace of the Lord be with you always!

Fr. Christopher J. Pollard