This is the most famous prayer never written by St. Francis. Composed anonymously around 1912 and first published in a French spiritual magazine, it distills the Franciscan charism into twelve lines. Pray it when you are caught in conflict, when you want to retaliate, or when you need to remember that you were made to give, not to grasp.
Lord, make me an instrument of thy 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.
Anonymous, c. 1912
How this prayer works
The prayer asks God to make you useful in six pairs of opposites: hatred/love, injury/pardon, doubt/faith, despair/hope, darkness/light, sadness/joy. Each pair names a wound you might encounter today and the gift you are being asked to bring. It is not a promise that you will succeed. It is a request that you be the kind of person who tries.
The second half inverts the usual human posture. We naturally seek consolation, understanding, love. The prayer asks that we seek instead to console, to understand, to love first. Though it was not written by St. Francis of Assisi (d. 1226), it captures his insistence that the Gospel is enacted, not theorized. The early Franciscans rebuilt leper hospitals, preached to birds, and kissed the wounds of the sick. This prayer holds that same grammar: be the instrument, not the craftsman.
Pray it before a difficult conversation. Pray it when you are nursing a grudge. Pray it when you want to win an argument more than you want peace. The prayer does not promise that the other person will change. It promises only that you might.
Carry it through this morning.
