The Prayer of St Francis
The full text of the prayer known as the Peace Prayer of St Francis, what it asks for, and the honest history of where it actually comes from.
The prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of your 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; and 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; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
History & tradition
It is worth being straight about this one: the prayer is not by St Francis of Assisi. It first appeared, anonymously and in French, in a small devotional magazine called La Clochette in 1912 — nearly seven hundred years after his death — and became attached to his name during the First World War, when it was printed on a card bearing his image. The attribution stuck. The prayer is genuinely Franciscan in spirit, which is why nobody much minded, but it is not his.
When to pray it
Pray it when you are the injured party. It is very hard to pray honestly while you are still hoping to be understood rather than to understand, and that difficulty is the prayer doing its work.
Three short alternatives
The line most people need
'Grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand.' Pray that one alone before a conversation you are dreading.
Matthew 5:9
'Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.' The verse the prayer is built on.
A version for an argument
'Lord, make me an instrument of your peace in this — not the winner of it. Amen.'
Pair it with daily practice
See our verses about peace and verses about forgiveness. The prayer timer gives this prayer the unhurried five minutes it needs.
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." — Matthew 5:9 (KJV)
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