| Comment | Neither the peace nor the ritual greeting 'The Lord be with you' is exclusively Catholic; both are also widely used by liturgical Protestants, including most Anglicans and Lutherans, and many Methodists, Presbyterians, and so on.
In some congregations, all people say the same thing to each other, usually
—Peace be with you.
In others, the second person answers
—And also with you.
Depending on the congregation and on the individuals, there may also be a handshake, or just a smile.
Ritual greetings and responses such as
Leader: The Lord be with you.
People: And with your spirit.
may be used in various different places in the worship service (indeed, more than once in the same service), but they usually precede a prayer, which is often introduced with
Leader: Let us pray.
I'm not at home with my bookshelf, but if I recall correctly, the peace is not actually a part of the communion liturgy proper. I think the usual order is (more or less)
. . .
Homily / Sermon
Creed
Prayer of Confession
Passing of the Peace
Offering
Eucharist / Communion
. . .
where the communion liturgy starts with
Leader: The Lord be with you.
People: And also with you.
L: Lift up your hearts.
P: We lift them up to the Lord.
L: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
P: It is right to give our thanks and praise.
and continues with the Great Thanksgiving (a formal prayer beginning 'It is right, and a good and joyful thing, ...,' followed by the Sanctus ('Holy, holy, holy'), etc.
Hussein, for your purposes, I think what you need to know is that such greetings (which are sometimes also used as farewells) do indeed express a (ritualized) wish.
Historically, as others have pointed out from the perspective of anthropology, the exchange of such wishes probably served to defuse tension and prevent conflict. The speaker made his or her peaceful intentions explicit by expressing a wish for the well-being of the hearer or hearers.
The use of the subjunctive makes it clear that such greetings represent a wish:
Friede sei mit dir. (not 'ist,' indicative)
Peace be with you. (not 'is,' indicative)
The other way of expressing this is often with a modal verb: 'May peace be with you.' It's like wishing a blessing for the other person, wishing that God may grant this good thing.
In ancient societies, such as in the time of the Bible, such formal wishes were often used when greeting people or taking leave from them, and they formed part of typical salutations and closings of letters. In the modern day, in many countries that you might think of as more or less 'westernized,' such ritual greetings now tend to survive in full mainly only in very formal contexts such as (traditional-style) worship. It's no longer necessary to state such wishes explicitly in everyday conversation; it is assumed that our intentions are generally peaceful toward each other, because we no longer live in an age of tribal or clan warfare. Also, our concept of God has changed greatly; many of us no longer imagine a deity like a patriarchal human ruler who capriciously grants or denies individual wishes, but instead understand God more as a way of expressing what ultimate reality is like, an image of how life is better when we humans act peacefully toward each other and the world.
You can see vestiges of such ritual expressions of greeting and farewell in the etymology of many languages. You probably know, for example, that the English word 'Goodbye' comes from the longer wish 'God be with ye.'
And even today, simpler greetings such as 'Hi' or 'Hello,' gestures such as a handshake, and facial expressions such as a smile still fulfill essentially a milder version of the same social function.
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