The Peace Prayer, often attributed to 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;
where there is sadness, joy.
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.
Rev. Susan Pendleton Jones
Senior Fellow of Christ-Centered Visioning & First Lady of Belmont University
“This prayer is beautiful in its simplicity, but it is daring in its challenge to all of us. When you read it carefully and closely it makes you pause – you realize it’s not our natural inclination to live like he’s praying. It turns things upside-down. The world we live in most days is not like this – it’s far too often ‘dog eat dog’, ‘tit for tat’, an ‘eye for an eye’, we want to get even. But that’s not at all what the prayer is saying. We’re praying the way Jesus lived and taught.”