Prayer of Saint Francis
Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much
Seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
Pardoning that we are pardoned,
And dying to self that we are born unto Eternal life. Amen.
Reflections by Fred Schaeffer, OFS
The above prayer is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, but historians believe he didn't write it.
- Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace
How can we be instruments of God's peace in this frenetic world? We can begin by turning our minds to Him who has promised us salvation and eternal joy, and remodel our lifestyle more in keeping with His gentleness and peacefulness. This is a process that will not occur overnight, but in order to be that instrument of His Peace, let us begin now! As Catholics, the first thing one might do, before beginning a new project, in this case a lifelong project, is to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Let's begin with a fresh slate.
Another important ingredient to daily conversion is toning down the noise. By that I mean restricting all the meaningless and banal influences that we listen to daily. Many well-meaning Catholics use the television for news and entertainment. Have you lately observed all the messages that is paraded in front of our eyes/ears that are meaningless and even harmful junk, and I'm not even talking of commercials. Let's take a news. The announcer or anchor-person on most news channels not only reads the news or message, but instantly interprets same. Is this necessary? No!!! We are intelligent enough to interpret what we are hearing, we do not need a news announcer to tell us what we are to believe. Then they have panels, such as two or more people who will give their opinions of the news just read. That's nice, but again, we are force-fed what they believe, most of the time, and in the end I am so confused that I do not recall what the original premise of the news report was.
So cut down the noise and confusion, and you have a purer train of thought, and more time to discuss "events in daily life" with the Lord. Have an ongoing relationship with the Lord. He desires this, and it is good for us. This give and take with Jesus makes us an instrument of His peace, though humility and a simple life. Pray the Rosary and bring His (and our) Mother into your Faith picture. Devotion to the angels and saints also helps us to be instruments of His peace. - Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Bring love and peace to your family by loving your spouse and children, and if you are single, by respecting people around you. Where two people cannot work out a difference of opinion, they are too stubborn and/or proud, then hatred can result. It is a cessation of relationship, a breakdown of family unity, and if not a family setting, this hatred can occur among larger groups of people. If you, in your innermost thinking desire someone to die, or "go away permanently" - that's hatred, and the solution is love. In order to love anyone, we have to find some point of agreement. I don't have to like you but I must love you, why? Because Jesus Christ said so! His greatest command is to love others as you love Him and yourself. Ergo, if you do not love yourself, you can't love God or anyone else and that usually takes psychological or psychiatric help to get fixed. In other words, hatred is an illogical position. God loves us so, that a normal person would want to speak of that love to other people and multiply His love among all!
The classic example is two elderly men. They cannot stand each other. If spoken about the one or the other, they fly into a rage. They have no love for each other, and probably not for many other people. I listened to a guy the other day who told me he hated his brother. I asked him when they last met, and he said they hadn't talked in many, many years. I sort of wondered out loud how he knew that his brother still felt the way he did - when there had been no contact for so long? People change! Call him on the phone, talk to him as if nothing happened, then when you get into the conversation, apologize for your long silence... it works wonders, particularly when you speak / pray about it with Mary, Jesus or whomever you address your prayers to. It is never too late to forgive. It takes forgiveness to turn hatred into love. Where there is hatred, let me sow love... - Where there is injury, pardon
A situation in which hatred prevails causes grave injury. Why? Because the condition "eats" at a person, it is something he or she continues to think about or brood about and what you get is psychological injury! I wouldn't be surprised that some of our physical injuries (a pain in the back?) could be the result of a family dispute where no one intends to forgive and forget. Such relationships are extremely stressful usually to both parties although they'd never admit it. An even stronger injury is done when two groups of people, or a nation, hate each other because of the color of the skin, or the lifestyle one leads. Yes, I know such responses are also illegal, but that hasn't stopped anyone from creating that sort of injury. On the smaller scale, a difference between two people is easier to resolve than a large scale cultural difference, but we must try. In prayer ask for the Spirit of the Lord to guide us to mutual forgiveness. Ask God to pardon us, as we insult another person or people, that injury needs to receive healing. - Where there is doubt, faith
Doubt, unbelief in God, disbelief in the goodness of others, ask our Father in Heaven to give you a measure of faith, hope and charity, so that your doubt can be erased. Begin with the doubt you feel, and not with the doubt you perceive your spouse, child or neighbor feels. Belief in God's goodness and power will help eradicate doubt. - Where there is despair, hope
Despair is a feeling of worthlessness, total lack of confidence in our ability to get us out of a critical situation. People whose property has been foreclosed could feel despair at the thought where the next meal will come from, or a roof over their heads. Our Lord has given us a mechanism to deal with despair, and that is hope. It is the seeing of a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, the recognition that there is some way out of the present predicament, with His Grace and love. People who are seriously ill, are often driven to despair... let us pray that they may through God's love find hope to overcome their thoughts of despair. Despair in young people, particularly teenagers has been known to lead to thoughts of suicide, so we pray that they have good friends who can look out for them and bring them some measure of hope. - Where there is darkness, light
"When life was dark and foreboding..." sounds like the beginning of a horror book. Darkness of thought is nothing to joke about. People who experience extreme darkness, are often very sad. A person suffering from a bipolar condition, might feel extreme darkness, but to one extend or another, we all do at some point in our lives. I pray that a good friend be around at this point of darkness, so that we will find light. How nice it would be if that light was Jesus the Lord, and we had the Grace to recognize Him. - Where there is sadness, joy
St. Francis had great compassion, and this shows in many of the writings about him. In fact, it does not surprise me that he was a bearer of the Wounds of the Lord, the Stigmata, for Francis was keenly aware of the sadness that went along with Jesus' suffering and death. Francis was also very much aware of Joy, or as he called it "Perfect Joy." Joy, that feeling of lightness and simple pleasure, a smile of the soul, cancels out darkness. We will experience this holy joy as we become friends with Jesus. So talk to Him often, share your feelings with Him (it isn't important if you discern an answer from Him or not - that will come eventually). Always be open to His joy, instantly - do not shelve it away because you have something else to do... God's joy is a gift from Heaven and drives sadness away. - O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love.
What Francis means here (even though he did not write this prayer that is attributed to him) is for us to take a back-seat (I mean us, personally) and to love other people much more than we love ourselves. Compassion is consolation, understanding and love - of someone who is in dire straights, someone who really needs help. So it just doesn't matter if we feel sadness too. What is important is that we are there for the other person. - For it is in giving that we receive, Pardoning that we are pardoned, And dying to self that we are born unto Eternal life. Amen.
When we give what we have to another, we will receive in return, when we pardon the fault of another, we ourselves are abundantly pardoned, and when we die to self (that is, do all these acts of charity for the Glory of God and not for our own edification) we will receive Eternal life. That is where all desire to go. I hope I will get there too, and I rejoice at the thought of spending much more time with you, and with Jesus, Mary and the Angels and Saints.
Peace!
Fred Schaeffer, OFS
2011; Slightly revised 2023, on the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi