Land sakes alive, it's been another rancorous week what with one thing and another.
So I poked around this morning for something hopeful, in this case a performance of that prayer attributed to St. Francis, performed by the choir of Dragon School, Oxford --- back in 2011.
"Attributed" since Francis didn't pray it --- the earliest version appeared anonymously in French about 1912. Here's the English translation of that original.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offense, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.
The setting is by Sebastian Temple, a South African song writer who actually was a third-order Franciscan. The sculpted representation of the saint himself, lifted online, is located somewhere in Italy --- I couldn't quite figure out where.
Notice the words --- a call to action, individually and collectively. That's what prayer is, actually.
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