Morris ClarkFew prayers in all of Christian history have moved hearts, stilled storms of inner conflict, and redirected the gaze of the soul toward selfless love the way the St. Francis Prayer for Peace has. For centuries, this brief but breathtakingly profound prayer has been lifted by believers in cathedrals and cottages, by diplomats and the broken-hearted, by those seeking to end wars and those simply trying to survive the morning. Its words are ancient, yet they arrive at the doorstep of every new generation feeling startlingly personal — as though they were written for this exact moment, this exact struggle, this exact person.
The prayer is commonly attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, the beloved thirteenth-century Italian friar who renounced a life of privilege to embrace radical simplicity, joyful poverty, and an almost scandalous tenderness for all of God’s creation. Francis is one of the most admired figures in Christian history — revered not only by Catholics, who canonized him in 1228, but by Protestant believers, Orthodox Christians, and even people of no formal faith who recognize in him a quality of spirit that feels genuinely Christlike.
Interestingly, historical scholars have established that this specific prayer was not written during Francis’s lifetime in the 1200s. The prayer as we know it first appeared in French in a small Catholic devotional magazine called La Clochette (“The Little Bell”) in 1912, and was later printed on a holy card bearing a picture of Saint Francis in 1915. From there it spread through the world like a quiet fire — adopted by peace movements, printed in prayer books, quoted by world leaders, and whispered in private moments of surrender by millions of ordinary believers. Though the prayer may not have flowed from Francis’s own pen, it so perfectly embodies the spirit, theology, and heart of the man that it has rightfully carried his name across the centuries.
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“The prayer attributed to Saint Francis captures the essence of his entire life’s message: that peace is not something we receive — it is something we become, and then give away.”
What makes the St. Francis Prayer for Peace so spiritually powerful is what it asks for. It does not ask God to change the world around us — it asks God to change us, so that we might change the world. It does not petition for the removal of our enemies but for the grace to love them. It does not request comfort for the self but the capacity to comfort others. In an age of relentless self-promotion and personal branding, this prayer is almost countercultural in its orientation — it faces outward, toward the suffering of others, with open and empty hands.
In this devotional article, we will walk through every line of the St. Francis Prayer for Peace with deep reflection, scriptural grounding, and practical spiritual application. Whether you are encountering this prayer for the first time or returning to it as a spiritual touchstone, our prayer is that these pages would open your heart to a deeper dimension of peace — not the kind the world gives, but the kind that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).
The St. Francis Prayer for Peace — Full Text
Read this prayer slowly. Let each line settle in your spirit before moving to the next.
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.
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;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
Who Was Saint Francis of Assisi?
To fully appreciate the St. Francis Prayer for Peace, it helps to understand the man whose life gave it its name. Francis Bernardone was born in 1181 or 1182 in Assisi, a hilltop town in Umbria, central Italy, to Pietro Bernardone, a wealthy cloth merchant, and his French wife, Pica. By all accounts, the young Francis was charming, generous, and thoroughly worldly — fond of music, feasting, fine clothes, and the admiration of his peers. He dreamed of becoming a great knight and earning glory in battle.
That dream died on a battlefield. After being captured during a military conflict between Assisi and the neighbouring city of Perugia, Francis spent about a year as a prisoner of war. He returned home ill and deeply changed. The armour of ambition had been cracked, and through those cracks something else was beginning to grow. He began to withdraw from the parties that once delighted him. He began to seek silence. He began to pray.
The defining moment of Francis’s conversion came when he encountered a leper on the road outside Assisi. Leprosy inspired deep revulsion in the medieval world — those afflicted were regarded as socially dead, forced to carry bells to warn others of their approach. Francis, filled with the grace he had been quietly receiving in prayer, dismounted his horse, embraced the leper, and kissed his hand. He later wrote that what had previously seemed bitter to him was turned into sweetness of soul and body. In that act of radical compassion, Francis became the man whose spirit this prayer breathes.
“Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you…for I was sick and you visited Me.'” — Matthew 25:34, 36 (NKJV)
Francis went on to found the Franciscan Order, a community of friars committed to radical poverty, itinerant preaching, care for the poor, and joyful simplicity. He preached to birds, negotiated with a wolf terrorising a village, and, according to tradition, received the stigmata — the wounds of Christ — in his hands, feet, and side near the end of his life. He died in 1226, singing.
The peace that Francis embodied was not passive or naive. It was hard-won through deep interior conversion, repeated encounters with suffering, and an absolute surrender to the will of God. It was the peace of a man who had truly died to himself — and found, in that dying, the fullness of life in Christ. That is the peace this prayer invites us into.
Line-by-Line Devotional Reflections on the St. Francis Prayer for Peace
Every line of this prayer is a theological world in miniature. Each petition carries layers of meaning that deserve to be unwrapped slowly, meditated upon, and prayed back to God with genuine intention. What follows is a careful, scripture-grounded reflection on each movement of this prayer.
1. “Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.”
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
The prayer begins not with a request for peace, but for the grace to carry it. The word instrument is crucial. An instrument does not generate the music — it channels it. A violin does not create the melody; it transmits the skill and intention of the player. In the same way, Francis is not asking God to grant him some inner state of personal tranquillity. He is asking to become a vessel, a conduit, a transmitter of the peace that originates entirely in God.
This is a deeply humble posture. It assumes that God is the source of all true peace, and that the believer’s role is not to manufacture peace through good behaviour or positive thinking, but to be so aligned with God’s heart and God’s will that divine peace flows through them naturally into every environment they enter. People like this exist — we have all met them. When they walk into a tense room, the temperature drops. When they speak, anxiety loosens its grip. They are instruments.
“Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with you all.” — 2 Thessalonians 3:16 (NKJV)
Reflection: Ask yourself today — when I enter a room, do I bring peace or agitation? Do I increase or decrease the anxiety of those around me? This prayer is an invitation to become someone who carries an atmosphere.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” — Matthew 5:9 (NKJV)
Notice also that Jesus calls the peacemakers sons of God — not the peace-possessors, but the peace-makers. Peace is something we are called to actively make, to intentionally create, to diligently pursue. It is a vocation, not merely a virtue.
2. “Where there is hatred, let me sow love.”
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Hatred is perhaps the most corrosive force in human relationships. It begins as a wound — a betrayal, an injustice, a rejection — and left untended, it becomes a consuming fire that ultimately destroys its host more than its target. The prayer does not ask God to remove the hatred from our environment, as though we were helpless observers of the human condition. It asks for the grace to go into the soil of hatred and sow love — deliberately, sacrificially, persistently.
The agricultural metaphor of sowing is rich with meaning. A farmer who sows does not expect an overnight harvest. He prepares the soil, plants the seed, waters it, and then waits. Sowing love into places of hatred requires exactly this kind of patient faith. You may sow a kindness that will not germinate for months or years. You may never personally witness the harvest. But sowing is never wasted — God keeps the accounting.
“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” — Matthew 5:44 (NKJV)
Reflection: Who in your life represents a place of ‘hatred’ — an enemy, an estranged family member, a colleague who works against you? What would it look like to intentionally sow one act of love into that relationship this week?
“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” — Galatians 6:9 (NKJV)
3. “Where there is injury, pardon.”
Where there is injury, pardon.
Injury here refers to the wounds we inflict on one another through our words, our actions, our neglect, and our selfishness. The world is full of injured people — and, if we are honest, most of us carry wounds we have never fully allowed to heal. The prayer asks not that God would remove the injuries, but that He would make us agents of pardon — people who offer forgiveness freely, generously, and before it is earned.
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The Greek word translated as ‘forgive’ in the New Testament is aphiemi, which literally means ‘to release’ or ‘to let go.’ Forgiveness is the act of releasing the debt. It does not mean pretending the injury did not happen. It does not mean there are no consequences. It means choosing not to hold the debt against the offender — freeing both them and yourself from the prison of unforgiveness.
“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” — Ephesians 4:32 (NKJV)
Reflection: Unforgiveness is described in many spiritual traditions as drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Is there an injury in your past — or present — that you are still carrying? Bring it to this line of the prayer, and ask God for the grace to pardon.
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” — Matthew 6:14 (NKJV)
4. “Where there is doubt, faith.”
Where there is doubt, faith.
Doubt is not the enemy of faith — in many ways, it is its testing ground. Every sincere believer passes through seasons of doubt. The question is whether we let doubt become a destination or treat it as a corridor through which we walk toward deeper trust. This line of the prayer asks for the grace to bring faith into spaces where doubt has taken root — both in our own hearts and in the hearts of those around us.
To sow faith into a doubting environment is a tremendous act of courage. It means maintaining a confession of trust when circumstances shout otherwise. It means speaking life over situations that look dead. It means remaining an anchor for others whose hope is wavering, even when your own is being tested. Hebrews 11 gives us a long gallery of people who did exactly this — they acted on what they could not yet see and the world was changed by their obedience.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” — Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)
Reflection: Think of someone in your circle whose faith is faltering right now. How can your steady trust in God serve as an anchor for them? You do not have to have all the answers — sometimes presence and faithfulness are the most powerful witnesses of all.
“Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!'” — Mark 9:24 (NKJV)
Notice the beautiful honesty of that father in Mark 9. He holds faith and doubt in the same breath — and Jesus heals his son anyway. God is not repelled by our honest doubt. He meets us in it and transforms it.
5. “Where there is despair, hope.”
Where there is despair, hope.
Despair is one of the heaviest burdens the human soul can carry. It is the conviction that nothing will ever get better — that the story has no good ending, that God is either absent or indifferent, that effort is futile. In the Psalms, we see David passing through precisely this valley: ‘Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?’ (Psalm 42:5). And yet the Psalms are also among the most hope-saturated literature in all of Scripture, because David never let despair have the last word.
To be a carrier of hope in a despairing world is an act of profound spiritual resistance. It means choosing, day after day, to hold onto the character of God when circumstances deny His goodness. Christian hope is not wishful thinking or positive psychology — it is the confident expectation of what God has promised, grounded in the evidence of what He has already done in Christ. The resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate anti-despair statement of history.
“And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” — Romans 5:5 (NKJV)
Reflection: Who in your life is sitting in a place of despair right now? A friend who has received devastating news, a family member who sees no way forward, a colleague on the edge of giving up? Ask God to make you the carrier of a word of hope to them today — not platitudes, but the deep, anchored hope of the gospel.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” — Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV)
6. “Where there is darkness, light.”
Where there is darkness, light.
This line echoes the very opening movement of creation: ‘And God said, Let there be light’ (Genesis 1:3). Light is not an absence of darkness — it is a presence that overcomes it. Darkness has no independent power; it simply exists wherever light has not yet arrived. This is a deeply practical truth for daily life. We do not fight darkness with more darkness. We do not overcome hatred with greater hatred or despair with greater despair. We bring the opposite — we bring light.
Jesus declared in John 8:12, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.’ And then in Matthew 5:14, He turns to His disciples and says, ‘You are the light of the world.’ Not will be — are. The presence of a genuinely Spirit-filled believer in any environment should function like a lamp being carried into a dark room. Things that were hidden become visible. Truth is revealed. Confusion dissipates.
“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden…Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” — Matthew 5:14, 16 (NKJV)
Reflection: In what ‘dark’ space are you called to be a light right now? It might be a toxic workplace, a struggling marriage, a community plagued by division, or simply a friendship group where cynicism has become the default. You were placed there not by accident but by appointment.
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” — Ephesians 5:8 (NKJV)
7. “Where there is sadness, joy.”
Where there is sadness, joy.
This is perhaps the most tender petition in the first half of the prayer. Sadness is universal. There is not a human heart that has not been pressed by grief, by loss, by the sharp ache of things that were supposed to be different. The prayer does not ask us to dismiss or trivialise sadness — to plaster over real wounds with a cheerful smile. What it asks is that we carry a deeper current of joy that is capable of co-existing with sorrow and ultimately outlasting it.
The Christian tradition has always maintained a distinction between happiness and joy. Happiness is contingent — it rises and falls with circumstances. Joy is covenantal — it is rooted in the unchanging character of God and the finished work of Christ. Paul writes in Philippians 4:4, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!’ This was written from prison. That is not happiness — it is something far more durable and far more miraculous.
“You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” — Psalm 16:11 (NKJV)
Reflection: Is the joy of the Lord truly your strength today (Nehemiah 8:10)? Or have you allowed the weight of circumstances to extinguish a fire that God intended to burn constantly? Ask God to restore the joy of His salvation (Psalm 51:12) — and then ask Him to let it spill over into the lives of those who are grieving around you.
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” — Psalm 30:5 (NKJV)
The Second Movement: The Art of Self-Forgetfulness
The prayer now shifts its register. The first half asked God to use us as channels of specific gifts — love, pardon, faith, hope, light, joy. The second half descends even deeper into the interior, asking for the transformation of our most fundamental relational orientation. It is one thing to bring gifts to others. It is another thing entirely to stop measuring what we receive in return. This second movement is where the prayer becomes genuinely radical.
8. “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console.”
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console.
The address shifts here to ‘O Divine Master’ — a recognition that what is being asked in the second movement requires a level of grace that surpasses ordinary human willpower. We are asking the Master craftsman of souls to reshape something deep in our nature: the instinct to prioritise our own comfort.
All of us have a deep, legitimate need for consolation. We ache to be comforted in our pain, to have someone notice our suffering and respond with care. There is nothing wrong with this desire — it is deeply human and God Himself promises to be our Comforter (John 14:16). But the prayer invites us to shift our primary orientation from seeking comfort to offering it. The paradox embedded in this shift is that those who have stopped urgently seeking comfort often find that it finds them — because they are no longer in the way of receiving it.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” — 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (NKJV)
Reflection: There is a beautiful progression in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 — God comforts us so that we can comfort others with the same comfort. Your own pain, properly received and processed, becomes the very resource that equips you to help someone else. Your wounds can become your ministry.
9. “To be understood as to understand.”
To be understood as to understand.
Of all the hungers of the human soul, perhaps none is more universal than the hunger to be understood. To be truly known — not just tolerated or approved of, but genuinely, accurately seen — is one of the deepest needs we carry. This is why misunderstanding is so painful. When we are misread, misjudged, or had our motives misrepresented, something in us cries out with a grief that feels disproportionate. We are made for intimate knowledge of and by others.
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The prayer does not ask us to surrender this need — it asks us to subordinate it. Before I ask to be understood, let me ask how to understand. Before I demand that my perspective be heard, let me bend toward the perspective of the other. The discipline of seeking to understand before being understood is one of the most transformative practices available to the Christian — and one of the rarest.
“So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” — James 1:19 (NKJV)
Reflection: Think about your last significant conflict or misunderstanding. What percentage of your mental energy went toward rehearsing your own position and what percentage went toward genuinely trying to understand the other person’s experience? This prayer is an invitation to reverse the ratio.
“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.” — Philippians 2:3 (NKJV)
10. “To be loved as to love.”
To be loved as to love.
This may be the most searching petition in the entire prayer. The desire to be loved is the most fundamental ache of the human heart — it runs deeper than hunger, deeper than the desire for safety, deeper even than the desire for significance. We were made by love and for love (1 John 4:8), and every human being arrives in the world already longing to be unconditionally cherished.
And yet the prayer asks us to hold that longing loosely — not to deny it, but to redirect our primary energy from receiving love to giving it. This is only possible, it must be said, if we have first received the love of God. A person who has not known love cannot give it freely — they can only transact it, trading affection for approval, offering warmth in the hope of warmth in return. But someone who has been filled with the love of God (Romans 5:5) can give without keeping score, can love without demanding reciprocity. They love because they are loved — not in order to be loved.
“We love Him because He first loved us.” — 1 John 4:19 (NKJV)
Reflection: Are you currently loving someone in a way that is secretly contingent on their response? Is there a relationship where your affection has dried up because it was not returned in the way you hoped? Bring that relationship to God and ask for the grace to love the way He loves — freely, fully, without condition.
“And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” — Ephesians 5:2 (NKJV)
The Final Paradoxes: The Upside-Down Kingdom
The prayer closes with three stunning paradoxes — statements that seem impossible to the natural mind but contain the deepest wisdom of the gospel. These are not pious platitudes. They are descriptions of the actual mechanics of God’s kingdom, verified by Scripture, by the lives of the saints, and by the testimony of countless ordinary believers across every generation.
11. “For it is in giving that we receive.”
For it is in giving that we receive.
This paradox cuts against the grain of every economic and social instinct. Every market, every transaction, every human institution is built on the logic of receiving what you have earned or purchased. But the kingdom of God operates on an entirely different economy — one in which generosity, not acquisition, is the engine of blessing.
Jesus stated this principle in stark terms: ‘Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you’ (Luke 6:38). This is not prosperity theology — it is kingdom mathematics. The currency being described is not only financial; it includes time, attention, compassion, wisdom, forgiveness, and every other form of goodness we might withhold or release.
“Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.” — Luke 6:38 (NKJV)
Reflection: Where in your life are you holding back — waiting to give until you have more, waiting to be generous until generosity feels safe? The prayer suggests that this is precisely where to begin. Start giving in the area where you feel most constrained, and watch what God does.
“There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.” — Proverbs 11:24 (NKJV)
12. “It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.”
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
This paradox is sobering. Jesus spoke about it in the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors’ (Matthew 6:12). And immediately after giving the prayer, He made the connection explicit: ‘For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses’ (Matthew 6:14-15).
This is not a transactional arrangement in which we earn God’s forgiveness through our own. It is rather a description of spiritual reality: the same heart that remains tightly clenched around an old unforgiveness is a heart that cannot fully receive the grace of God. Forgiveness flows through open hands. When we pardon others — even when it is undeserved, even when it is costly, even when they have not asked — we participate in the very nature of God, and find ourselves swept deeper into His own mercy.
“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” — Mark 11:25 (NKJV)
Reflection: Is there someone you have not yet forgiven? Not because the wound was not real — it was real. Not because they deserved forgiveness — perhaps they did not. But because the act of pardoning releases you into a dimension of God’s grace that is not accessible to the unforgiving heart. This prayer invites you through that door.
“Bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.” — Colossians 3:13 (NKJV)
13. “It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
This is the most audacious paradox of all, and the one that gives the entire prayer its deepest foundation. On the surface, it points to physical death and the resurrection that awaits every believer. But its primary application is spiritual — it is the death of the self that makes room for the resurrection life of Christ.
Jesus said it plainly: ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life’ (John 12:24-25). The selfishness that clings to its own comfort, its own rights, its own agenda — that self must die. And in its dying, something far more alive takes its place. Paul described it as his daily reality: ‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me’ (Galatians 2:20).
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” — Galatians 2:20 (NKJV)
Reflection: What is the ‘self’ that God is inviting you to lay down today? It might be a grudge, an ambition, a need to be right, a fear of losing control, a reliance on human approval. Whatever it is, the promise of this prayer is extraordinary: in that dying, you will find a life you did not know was waiting for you.
“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” — Matthew 16:25 (NKJV)
How to Pray the St. Francis Prayer for Peace as a Daily Devotion
The St. Francis Prayer for Peace is not merely a text to be read — it is a prayer to be lived. Here are several ways to make it a living part of your daily spiritual practice:
Morning Surrender
Begin each morning by praying the prayer slowly, line by line, pausing after each petition to genuinely mean it. Invite God to bring to mind specific people and situations where you are being called to be an instrument. Write their names in a journal.
Lectio Divina with the Prayer
Choose one line of the prayer each day for two weeks and sit with it as a form of lectio divina — read it, meditate on it, allow it to speak to you, and then respond in prayer. This practice allows the prayer to become genuinely transformative rather than merely recited.
Evening Examination
At the close of each day, review the prayer in light of your day’s experiences. Where did you bring love where there was hatred? Where did you fail to? This gentle examination is not about guilt but about growing self-awareness in the light of God’s grace.
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Praying for Others
When you encounter someone in a difficult situation — conflict, grief, doubt, despair — pray this prayer on their behalf. Ask God to send into their life an instrument of exactly the grace they need.
Communal Prayer
This prayer is powerful in community. Pray it together as a family, a small group, or a church. Let it become a shared orientation — a collective declaration of what kind of community you intend to be.
Conclusion
The world has never needed the St. Francis Prayer for Peace more urgently than it does right now. We live in an age of unprecedented noise — ideological warfare, fractured communities, personal isolation masked by digital connection, and a pandemic of anxiety that touches every demographic, every nation, every faith tradition. Into this fractured world, the ancient wisdom of this prayer speaks with startling clarity: the answer to the world’s need is not more information, more argument, more political power. The answer is people who have been made into instruments.
When you pray the St. Francis Prayer for Peace, you are joining a vast communion of believers across the centuries who have lifted the same words with the same intention. You are standing alongside Francis himself — not the legendary saint of religious iconography, but the young man from Assisi who one day dismounted his horse, embraced a leper, and discovered that what seemed bitter had been turned to sweetness. You are aligning yourself with the upside-down logic of the kingdom, where the greatest is the servant (Matthew 23:11), where the first shall be last (Matthew 20:16), where dying is the pathway to life.
“Peace is not something you wish for. It is something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” — Robert Fulghum
Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this prayer is what it does not ask for. It does not ask for victory over enemies. It does not ask for relief from suffering. It does not even ask directly for personal peace. It asks only to be used — to be emptied of self and filled with God, to be placed in the world as a carrier of everything the world is most desperately lacking. And in that selfless placing, the prayer promises, everything we truly need will find us.
That is the mystery and the glory of the St. Francis Prayer for Peace. Pray it slowly. Pray it often. Pray it until its words begin to shape not just your prayers but your choices — until you find yourself, one ordinary morning, noticing that something in you has changed, that the room feels different when you enter it, that the people around you seem a little steadier, a little more hopeful, a little less alone.
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That is what an instrument of peace looks like. May you become one — fully, freely, and for the glory of God.
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 4:7 (NKJV)
— Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Amen. —
Morris Clark