Go in Peace, Go Online, Go Make Peace

We should take literally the command at the end of Mass: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord! Having gathered together as the church, having listened together to God’s word and having shared the Eucharist, we are sent out to go and give to others what we have received here: fullness of life and love, justice and charity, mercy and peace. Remember sharing the sign of peace? To introduce the significant ritual gesture, the priest says the first words that the risen Christ says to the disciples on Easter evening: “I leave you peace, my peace I give you.” In the gospel of John, Jesus completes his greeting of peace with these words: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”
(John 20:21). Thus, at the end of Mass, we are sent forth by the presider or the deacon’s admonition to “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” “Thanks be to God!” we exclaim, and part of that means, “Yes, we will go, I will go, and love and serve the Lord by loving and serving the poor and those at war, the needy and the oppressed.”

In one sense, this admonition and our promise is general: Having shared in this Eucharist, becoming what we have eaten and drunk, we live our whole lives in loving service of God’s justice, ready to be broken like bread and poured out like wine so that others may be nourished and live. This is what St. Paul is talking about when he tells us who are baptized that we must “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). Having completed our Eucharist (for the time being, until next Sunday), we must not merely think good thoughts, we must do something, we must act. In other words, we must “put our bodies on the line,” whether it’s the soup kitchen serving line or the protest line, whether it’s going to the front line or erasing the line in the sand.

So, in another sense, the admonition to go in peace to love and to serve, and our resulting promise, is specific: We cannot say, “OK, I’ll get around to loving and serving in some way sometime this week.” We should leave Mass with a certain sense of urgency: “What-exactly what-am I going to do now?”

Copyright Archdiocese of Chicago: Liturgical Training Publications, 1980. North Hermitage Avenue, Chicago, IL 60622-1101: 800-933-1800. Text by David Philippart, Illustration by Luba Lukova.