As I sit down on this Sunday evening to offer a prayer, the words of one of the world’s most famous prayers come to mind. It is usually attributed to St Francis of Assisi, and I searched by the title Prayer of St Francis to find the words. The Wikipedia article, however, explains that the poetic prayer was never directly credited to the thirteenth century saint. The current form of what is often called the Peace Prayer can only be traced back to 1912.
The earliest known record of the prayer is its appearance, as a “beautiful prayer to say during Mass”, in the December 1912 issue of the small devotional French Catholic publication La Clochette... Although the prayer was published anonymously, French historian Christian Renoux concluded that, with few exceptions, the texts in La Clochette were generally written by its founding editor, Father Esther Bouquerel (1855–1923) (Wikipedia)
Around 1915, it was believed that William the Conqueror may have written the prayer. The attribution to St Francis of Assissi came around 1918 after Franciscan Father Étienne Benoît reprinted the “Prayer for Peace” in French, without attribution, on the back of a mass-produced holy card depicting his Order’s founder, Saint Francis of Assisi. The prayer become known in the United States when, in 1927, a version of the prayer was included in the Quaker publication, Friends Intelligencer. During World War II, millions of copies of “The Prayer of St Francis” were distributed. (according to Wikipedia article)
I hope that reading and praying the words that so many have brought before God throughout tumultuous times will bless you as it has me today. Here is the English translation of the original French prayer.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offense, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.
