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Prayer — Prayers of the Saints

Belle prière à faire pendant la Messe

Prayer of St. Francis (Peace Prayer)

1912, anonymous French author. Traditionally attributed to St. Francis of Assisi but not from him.

'Lord, make me an instrument of your peace' — first printed in a French Marian magazine in 1912 and now perhaps the most widely-known Catholic prayer of the modern era.

The Prayer

English · Original

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;
and 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.
Amen.

When the Prayer is Said

Personal devotion; at funerals; at ecumenical and interfaith gatherings.

History & Background

The Peace Prayer appeared anonymously in December 1912 in a small French Catholic spirituality magazine called La Clochette ('The Little Bell'), published by a French priest named Esther Bouquerel. It bore the title 'A Beautiful Prayer to Say During Mass.' It was reprinted in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in 1916.

The first appearance with the (incorrect) attribution to St. Francis of Assisi was on the back of an early printed prayer card in France in the 1920s, which combined the prayer with an image of the saint. From there it spread worldwide. Scholars are now in agreement that St. Francis did not write it — Franciscan academics confirm it is absent from every medieval source.

The misattribution has not lessened its love. Mother Teresa included it in her sisters' daily prayers; Margaret Thatcher quoted it on entering Downing Street; the United Nations has used it in interfaith ceremonies. Its spirit, if not its origin, is genuinely Franciscan.

Related Saints

St. Francis of Assisi

1181 or 1182 – October 3, 1226

All Prayers