Well, 2020 is off to a promising start --- We've created a new martyr in Iran, United Methodists are planning to disunite and Australia is burning, among other stuff.
So here's that little prayer again, "attributed to St. Francis" even though it seems to have been composed about 1912 by someone who may have had Francis in mind rather than by the venerable saint himself. You can find it on page 833 of the Book of Common Prayer and elsewhere.
The St. Francis prayer shifts a good share of the responsibility for answers from the petitioned to the petitioner. Answer your own prayer, the words suggest. Need peace? Get to work!
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we 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.
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