Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

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.



***



This was my favourite prayer as a girl. I don't know why, the words just spoke to me so profoundly and left such a deep impression on me ever since. And everytime we sang it in church (I used to go to SFX for Sunday Mass and I think that was where I sang this a lot), I got very happy. It was also one of the first hymns I learnt to play on the piano.

Today I found this prayer from my girlhood again in the prayer booklet someone left on the computer desk. And today I'm smiling as I sing the hymn to myself.

I want to be an instrument of God's peace again, to be a lot less selfish and self-centred. Oh, that He increases and I decrease in me!



*kelly.