It is in fact, the moment that is my favorite part of the catholic mass. If you're not catholic, the masses are long. But after the very structured ritual of faith in a mass, there is a moment where we all unbend and say Peace be with you and shake hands with the people near us. I don't know why but that moment always filled me with more a sense of spiritual peace than any other part of the mass. It is the moment where I get it and really connect to my faith.
I started writing I wish you Peace, always somewhere on a note or card or newsletter, after 9/11, when I started seeing young men and women who had grown up with my girls going into the military and into war zones. I can imagine nothing harder than being a mother and sending your child off to a war zone. I also find it very sad that we have been a country with our amazing young men and women somewhere on this earth in a war zone for nearly 15 years. We have been a country at war almost my youngest daughter's entire life. And worse, it has become the new normal in our country and people hardly think about it.
I think about it every day and will continue to until every young man or woman I've watched grow up(and all those amazing young men and women I do not know), laughing and playing in a school yard, playing sports, coming to my house for birthday parties or slumber parties or maybe only graduating school with one of my daughters; I will wish it until they comes home. Until their mothers are from worry, and there is peace on this earth.
So yes, I wish you Peace. Peace be with you.