Should I be more friendly at peace offering time?

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goodcatholic

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I am kind of shy person and when peace offering time arrives at Mass, I sometimes feel dread. I am happy to shake hands with the persons next to me but don’t wish to move far. It seems to me that someone always feels disappointed if they leave their hand out and are ignored. But this cant be helped. You cant shake hands with everyone at the same time. 🙂
Maybe I am anxious to please too. Anyway, peace offering time is a stressful time for me.
 
Yes. It is easier to do sign of peace at everyone. But then some people give you a dirty look.
 
Are you serious? I never thought we had that option. Maybe that is going too far though.
 
Just wave to people or raise your hand in a peace gesture.
Many people are now doing this as they do not want to contract flu, or they realize that some Catholics in USA are from cultures that do not shake hands.

I think the raising of hand is better than shaking hands. It is more of a gesture of peace as opposed to an invitation to have social chat with your friends.

The other week, some totally strange lady next to me in the pew decided to HUG me during the Sign of Peace. This was not a charismatic Mass, nor is this even a parish I’d ever been to before. Needless to say I was taken aback. I took it in good grace, but I’d like to know what possesses people to think that’s appropriate for somebody you do not know at all?
 
Brittany said:
Is this what “sign of peace” is?
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It’s similar, but “Sign of Peace” at Mass refers to a specific moment of the Mass ritual, added after Vatican II, where we are supposed to wish peace using some culturally established “sign” to the people around us in the pews. Normally in the USA this takes the form of shaking hands with the people next to you and in front and in back of you. If you are in a family group, people will often hug and kiss their family members.

I’ve noticed in my travels that people from other countries will often not shake hands in the US way, but instead will bow or nod to each other or use an upraised hand to just wish peace to all around them. I think those are better ways to do it.
 
I mean the peace sign…
You know, it looks like you’re making bunny ears.

It is when you put down all other fingers and lift up only your first (counting from the thumb) finger and the middle finger. I have heard having the fingers apart is offensive to Christians, so I like to keep them together.

Or you could just wave.

We are to offer some sign of peace (be it shaking hands or this or whatever) to those around us at our Mass. They did this in Rome as well.
 
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Kei said:
I have heard having the fingers apart is offensive to Christians, so I like to keep them together.
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It’s news to me that the peace sign is offensive to Christians.

Maybe back in the 70s, the gesture was associated either with anti-war hippies or with President Nixon doing it as a WWII “V for Victory” which is what it was before it became the Peace Sign.

Some people, especially those whose age would suggest they are “old hippies”, use the peace sign you describe, but the upraised hand seems more popular.
 
I never liked hand shaking. It’s inefficient and unhygienic.
Sometimes I would just clasp my hands like a prayer grip and smile.
 
I have had to stop people shaking my hands several times this year. For a couple weeks I had severe poison ivy rash on my hand and another time I got some kind of a bad skin irritation from a household cleaning product. Obviously I didn’t to be touching other people’s hands with sores and blisters on mine.

I’m a big fan of the upraised hand as it also keeps me from having to guess whether the elderly person next to me wants to shake hands or perhaps has arthritis or is worried about getting the flu.
 
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Understandable. You don’t have to shake hands. Just nod to the persons on your left and right would be good enough. It’s just symbolic.

Yes, there are people who would take this rather too far. But if they don’t know you, you don’t have to do it (hug or shake hand).

It shouldn’t disrupt the mass though admittedly the sign of peace is quite popular in some communities.
 
I like the idea of bowing or nodding.
I also don’t enjoy the hand holding during the Our Father. I would prefer to stand in silence with my hands folded and no
physical contact.
 
Oh yeah, there was some big to-do in the early 70s about how the Peace Symbol (the circle with the three lines in it ) was supposed to represent “a broken cross turned upside down”. I’m not sure who came up with that but I think it was the “fake news” of its day. I remember my mother and a bunch of my Catholic aunts getting all upset about it and the result was I was the only kid in my area not allowed to own anything with a peace symbol on it, in an era when it was literally everywhere.
 
One priest we had wanted us to do the peace offering at the start of Mass, as well as just before Communion. That was going too far imo.
 
In our parish, we have stopped the practice of holding hands during the Our Father. GIRM can be a great wonder to cut out those things.
 
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