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; It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.
Saint Francis of Assisi
The Prayer of Saint Francis
Topic: Serving Others
THE PRAYER OF SAINT FRANCIS
Lord, make me an instrument of thy 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;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.
Saint Francis of Assisi (born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, c. 1181 – 3 October 1226) was an Italian Catholic friar, deacon and preacher. He founded the men's Order of Friars Minor, the women’s Order of Saint Clare, the Third Order of Saint Francis and the Custody of the Holy Land. Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.
The Prayer of Saint Francis
Easwaran, Eknath. God Makes the Rivers to Flow: an Anthology of the World's Sacred Poetry & Prose. Nilgiri Press, 2009, p. 109 [The Prayer of Saint Francis].
Saint Francis of Assisi
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The Prayer of Saint Francis
Eknath Easwaran
St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181-1226) is probably the most universally loved of Catholic saints. This passage is published in Easwaran’s spiritual anthologies, “God Makes the Rivers to Flow” and “Timeless Wisdom.”
Francis Bernadone, perhaps the most universally loved of Christian saints, was born in Assisi, Italy. At age twenty-two, after a sudden illness that brought him almost to the point of death he left his home and inheritance to follow an injunction that he felt he received from Christ himself: “Francis, rebuild my church.” With the eagerness that was the hallmark of his personality, he set about repairing a tiny broken-down chapel on the outskirts of Assisi, begging for stones and singing while he worked. His directness, humility, and uncontainable joy drew others. Within a few years, three great Franciscan orders grew around the monks, nuns, and lay disciples who responded to his example of universal love and selfless service, following the way of Jesus as set forth in the Gospels….
–Eknath Easwaran [God Makes the Rivers to Flow, The Prayer of St. Francis] p. 109.