Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;

Where there is hatred, let me bring love;

Where there is injury, let me bring forgiveness;

Where there is discord, let me bring harmony;

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 are shadows, let me bring light;

Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;

To understand, than to be understood;

To love, than to be loved;

For it is in giving that one receives.

It is in forgetting oneself that one finds;

It is in forgiving that one is forgiven.

It is in dying that one awakens to eternal life.

Amen.

After I posted “Pray for Your Enemies”, this prayer popped into my head. It does seem to follow that theme.

Many teachers, including my good friend and mentor Lynn Woodland, teach that what you most want you must give to others. In Lynn’s groups, we often choose a personality characteristic or an ability that we would most like to have at that moment. After doing some spiritual work around claiming that thing, we are given the opportunity to confer that characteristic or ability to others in the group. In order to strengthen loving kindness in ourselves, for example, we would confer that trait to others who wished to receive it.

Wayne Dyer has a great observation on this prayer. He remarks that Saint Francis didn’t pray by saying, “Hey, Lord, I don’t have any peace. The neighbors are complaining and I don’t know what to do. Would you give me some peace?” I love that because it points out to me that Francis was a human being and likely had numerous worldly concerns of his own (life was pretty brutal in the 13^th century, from what I can gather). Yet, he chose to ask God to help him be an instrument of peace for others. That seems a truly saintly request, indeed.

Thanks to Wikipedia for posting the full French text of this prayer, which I used as a guide when posting the English here. The also say that the earliest confirmed version of this prayer comes from the 19^th century, so it may well not have been written by Saint Francis of Assisi himself. If it was inspired by Saint Francis, though, that's just as good as far as I am concerned. The spirit is still true.

Pray for Your Enemies

I use the word “enemies” because it sounds so dramatic, and I have a finely tuned appreciation of the dramatic. What I mean by “enemies” is anyone you don’t like, are angry at, or feel threatened, harmed, or wronged by.

So, why in the world would you want to pray for your enemies?

Wherever there is a feeling of enmity (dislike, anger, resentment, etc.), something is out of balance. These feelings hold that imbalance in place. When you pray for your enemy, you are telling Source (God/dess, All That Is) that you are willing to let go of your upset and allow balance to be restored. If the imbalance is in the other person, Source will bring them into balance. If the imbalance is with you (and sometimes, let’s face it, we’re just being pouty or cross), Source will bring you into balance. In other words, praying for someone you are divided from signals your willingness for healing and reconciliation.

A big part of my journey with prayer has been discovering that when I pray for other people, I receive almost immediate benefit myself in the form an enhanced feeling of well-being. I discovered, too, that praying for people I don’t like actually has a more powerful salubrious effect on me than praying for people I do like.

The sense that I make of such a seemingly peculiar situation is this: If I pray for my enemies, it means I really trust that the higher power to whom I am praying is fully benevolent and will take my prayers for these people’s well-being and use it in a way that will be for the highest good of all. For example, if I pray for people who are opponents of my political views (and, believe me, I have), I am trusting that Source won’t just make them victorious over me, but, rather, will find some way to ameliorate the schism between us and that that will be beneficial to everyone.

In short, hatred is healed by love. Try it out!