Prayer of St. Francis (Peace Prayer)

The "Peace Prayer" is one of the best-loved prayers in the modern world, and it is universally known as the Prayer of St. Francis. In truth, it was almost certainly not written by St. Francis of Assisi. No trace of it exists in the seven centuries between his death (1226) and the twentieth century. It first appeared, anonymously, in 1912, printed in a small French devotional magazine, La Clochette, published in Paris. Only later, around 1918, was it printed on the back of a holy card bearing an image of St. Francis — and from that association the name stuck.

Honesty about its origin takes nothing from its worth. If the prayer is not from the pen of the Poverello, it is deeply faithful to his spirit and to the Gospel he lived. Its whole movement is one of self-emptying love: to give rather than grasp, to console rather than be consoled, to pardon rather than be pardoned. This is the way of the Beatitudes and of the Cross, and it echoes Our Lord’s own paradox: "He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it" (Matthew 10:39).

The prayer asks to become an instrument — not the source of peace, but a channel of God’s. Peace, it quietly teaches, is not won by demanding one’s due but by sowing love where there is hatred, pardon where there is injury, hope where there is despair. It ends at the deepest Christian paradox of all: "it is in dying that we are born to eternal life." For that reason it has been prayed by countless souls seeking to make their lives a gift — a fitting fruit, if not the actual work, of the saint of Assisi.