St Francis of Assisi

Long ago when in college, I happened attend the college chapel on a Sunday. We had an elderly priest, who chose that day to speak about prayer.  What he said got embedded into our hearts for a very long time to come:

Actually it does not matter to which faith that we belong. What is important is to have faith. What is important is to believe that we can be instruments of God to spread the message of love, joy, peace and forgiveness.

After the service, the elderly priest went about distributing one of the most touching prayers that I have come across, to everyone in the congregation – Prayer of 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 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.

Many, many years later, another apostle of love who walked the Earth during our lifetime, Mother Theresa, delivered the same prayer with a little variation while addressing the UN in 1985: 

Make us worthy Lord to serve our fellow men throughout the world,

Who live and die in poverty and hunger.

Give them through our hands, this day, their daily bread

And by our understanding love give peace and joy.

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace.

That where there is hatred I may bring love,

That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness,

That where there is discord, I may bring harmony,

That where there is error I may bring truth,

That where there is doubt I may bring faith,

That where there is despair I may bring hope,

That where there are shadows I may bring light,

That where there is sadness I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted,

To understand than to be understood,

To love than to be loved.

For it is by forgetting self that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven,

it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.

Amen.

Great souls, I suppose, think alike!