It is the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis, a special Jubilee year. My catechism lessons ended some time ago, so I took this chance to review the Prayer of St. Francis, also one of the most popular hymns of my childhood. In hymn form it can be a little swoopy and saccharine, but in written form these words took on new resonance. Here is a prayer not for God to change the whole world to our liking, but rather to change ourselves, to make us instruments of peace and hope and light.

Dear ones, what will we sow today?

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (Prayer for Peace)

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 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.

Photo from the current Boston MFA exhibit, Picasso, Miro, Dali: Unbound. Highly recommended!