Finding Peace

 As a student in catholic school I was taught the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.

Recently I found a reference to this prayer in a book I was reading, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, in which its author, Eknath Easwaren, states that “when you use the prayer of St. Francis in meditation every day, you are driving the words deep into your consciousness. Eventually they will become an integral part of your personality, which means they will find constant expression in what you do, what you say and what you think.”

For me, I have found that saying the entire prayer to myself throughout the day, when I am waiting in line, stopped in traffic, feeling anxious or insecure gives me a sense of peace I would not otherwise have.

Here is the prayer. I hope it helps you too.

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; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.