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1 Lord, make us servants of your peace:
where there is hate, may we sow love;
where there is hurt, may we forgive;
where there is strife, may we make one.
2 Where all is doubt, may we sow faith;
where all is gloom, may we sow hope;
where all is night, may we sow light;
where all is tears, may we sow joy.
3 Jesus, our Lord, may we not seek
to be consoled, but to console,
nor look to understanding hearts,
but look for hearts to understand.
4 May we not look for love's return,
but seek to love unselfishly,
for in our giving we receive,
and in forgiving are forgiven.
5 Dying, we live, and are reborn
through death's dark night to endless day;
Lord, make us servants of your peace,
to wake at last in heaven's light.
Source: The Book of Praise #739
First Line: | Lord, Make Us Servants of Your Peace |
Paraphraser: | James Quinn |
Author (attributed to): | St. Francis, of Assissi |
Meter: | 8.8.8.8 |
Source: | Prayer attr. to St. Francis (based on) |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | © 1969, James Quinn, S.J., admin. OCP Publications |
The Prayer of Saint Francis is a Catholic Christian prayer. It is widely but erroneously attributed to the 13th-century saint Francis of Assisi. The prayer in its present form cannot be traced back further than 1912, when it was printed in Paris in French, in a small spiritual magazine called La Clochette (The Little Bell), published by La Ligue de la Sainte-Messe (The Holy Mass League). The author's name was not given, although it may have been the founder of La Ligue, Fr. Esther Bouquerel.
A professor at the University of Orleans in France, Dr. Christian Renoux, published a study of the prayer and its history in French in 2001 - (Renoux, Christian (2001). La prière pour la paix attribuée à saint François: une énigme à résoudre. Paris: Editions franciscaines.)
The prayer has been known in the United States since 1927 when its first known translation in English appeared in January of that year in the Quaker magazine Friends' Intelligencer (Philadelphia), where it was attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. Cardinal Francis Spellman and Senator Albert W. Hawkes distributed millions of copies of the prayer during and just after World War II.
Wikipedia, 11-14-2013