Prayer for Peace (St. Francis of Assisi)

Prayer for peace by St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your 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
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 love, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Being born destined to be a Catholic is definitely a mystery for me. But I don’t think I can replace what I grew up with; I can only learn about other religions but not totally immerse myself to them. But that’s for another day.

God for me is not someone who literally helps me in life. God is my inspiration through the works of His Son Jesus Christ, His Mother Mary and all the saints including St. Francis of Assisi. By being inspired by God, I find myself to look for what is right: Love God, Love your neighbour, Take Care of God’s gifts - nature & talent, and be able to become a good role model to everyone - I chose that over being a preacher though I am the latter in many cases.

What the Prayer for Peace teaches me is the fact that God loves Peace.

And if God loves Peace, then peace has to be very important in our lives.

Through peace, there is forgiveness, understanding, healing, reconciliation and giving - all of them are told and implied in the poem. It’s not too much of a responsibility neither do we have to be naturally forgiving and understanding. This is what peace is all about as it is told by the prayer.

There are people who define for themselves what peace is all about. I do it myself too but you won’t really understand peace unless you experience it not just in St. Francis’ prayer, but in all the various horizons that we consider whether it’s from writing or it’s from real life experiences.

Peace of mind, that is what peace also tries to achieve.

I will be going out there in the world trying to struggle for another job. And I definitely needed to always have a peace of mind in all of my decisions in life, in all of the risks that I will take, in all the mistakes that I will make and in how I will fix all those mistakes. My life is revolving fast and I definitely need to find my own right place in this world - I don’t necessarily call it destiny.

Through peace of mind, and peace itself, I will be able to find the perfect ways of writing, of drawing, of meeting people, of speaking to people, of doing well my work, and eventually, of having a romantic relationship.

Through the Prayer for Peace, God loves peace and peace achieves peace of mind.
I love this life because peace still has its own way of revealing in our lives.

1 John 4:4

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“Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

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in another version of the Bible, it says “Your failure is not your future. Defeat is not your destiny. You maybe knocked down, seven times but rise up, ’cause you are born to win.”

This passage is very interesting as it can be motivational. With success as one’s destiny, this passage promotes optimism that whatever we do in our lives, we will never go down as long as we keep up with it. It’s all within us really. If we ruin our paths in life, then we will sink and we will be destined absolutely to fail.

I do think of how my life can go on smoothly without any worries in mind. Of course as someone who believes that there is a supernatural being out there watching for us, I pray that I can be assisted through all my struggles in life and not just merely wish because wishes don’t necessarily become granted. And I have to acknowledge everyone and everything that have contributed towards my successes and failures and i always consider to use them next time I face more challenges.

But we can’t just give credit to something or someone for our destiny to succeed. We ourselves are the most important element towards that goal. We should always be aware of it. God is not a genie. God is a motivator and a helper. And our role is to use our freedom in order to meet our dreams in life which God would want us to attain anyways.