Lord, Make Us Servants of Your Peace

Representative Text

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

Author (attributed to): St. Francis, of Assissi

St. Francis of Assisi (Italian: San Francesco d'Assisi, born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, but nicknamed Francesco ("the Frenchman") by his father, 1181/1182 – October 3, 1226) was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Order of Friars Minor, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis for men and women not able to live the lives of itinerant preachers followed by the early members of the Order of Friars Minor or the monastic lives of the Poor Clares. Though he was never ordained to the Catholic priesthood, Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history. Francis' father was Pietro di Bernardone, a prosperous silk merchant. Francis lived the high-spirited life typic… Go to person page >

Paraphraser: James Quinn

James Quinn (b. Glasgow, Scotland, April 21, 1919; d. Edinburgh, Scotland, April 8, 2010) was a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest who was ordained in 1950. As a consultant for the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, sparked by Vatican II, he has exerted influence far beyond his native Scotland. A collection of his hymn texts is available from Selah Publishing company. Sing a New Creation Go to person page >

Notes

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

Tune

O WALY WALY

O WALY WALY is a traditional English melody associated with the song "O Waly, Waly, gin love be bony," the words of which date back at least to Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany (1724-1732), and as the setting for a folk ballad about Jamie Douglas. It is also well known in the Appalachian region of the…

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Timeline

Instances

Instances (1 - 16 of 16)

Ancient and Modern #717

TextPage Scan

Catholic Book of Worship III #630

Celebrating Grace Hymnal #290

Church Hymnary (4th ed.) #527

Hymns of Glory, Songs of Praise #527

Audio

Lift Up Your Hearts #904

Moravian Book of Worship #693

One in Faith #794

Rejoice in God #30

RitualSong (2nd ed.) #860

Audio

Sing! A New Creation #204

Text

The Book of Praise #739

The Hymnal 1982 #593

The Presbyterian Hymnal #374

Voices United #676

Worship (4th ed.) #755

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