Prayer of Saint Francis

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MAKE ME A CHANNEL
(THE PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS)

Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred let me bring your love.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord
And where there's doubt, true faith in you.

Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness, ever joy.

Make me a channel of your peace
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
In giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we're born to eternal life.

This is the perfect description of my personal Christian belief. It is the purest kernel of what has become so tarnished, bastardized, and misunderstood. So simple, yet so powerful.
Make Me a Channel is what everyone overlooks while arguing with such venom and spite.

This was also fastened into a song for mass, I believe.

St Francis was one of the better saints, my mom would always pray to St Jude, for me I think, he's the patron saint of lost causes

Why was he requesting to be made into what he idealized? Was that beyond his internal capabilities or did he detect within himself some other motivations?

Not my thing, but nicely written. I can see were a Christian would like that one.

Isn't this the kind of thing that appeals to the best nature in everyone? Don't see why you have to be religious to nod your head in agreement. A great many people adhere to secular spiritual values. I'm just asking what kind of person would have issue with the contents of this prayer?

Last edited by slowmutant on 10 Apr 2008, 7:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Francis, like all saints, aspired to be like God.

It helps even religious people to be aware of their limitations.

God the Father is a very good reminder of those limitations, I couldn't agree more. It's the impossible standard to which the faithful hold ourselves.

Everyone has some sort of unreachable goal, even it's just to be as thin as the models in ELLE magazine. Secular goals, I've noticed, approach the spiritual in their zeal & intensity. See the Church of Superbowl Sunday.

Admittedly, since seeing a stage version of Peter Pan at the age of 2, I have wanted to fly like Peter Pan but I am reasonably sure that becoming religious would give me little help in this direction.

Everybody wants to fly, God knows. How could He not?

A faithful heart makes wishes come true.

-Chinese proverb

Although I have private pilot license it really is unsatisfactory. I have seen a lot of religious people but none of them ever flew like Peter Pan. Why do you think God leaves so many people frustrated?

I don't know.

I thought I would share this prayer, I think it shares alot in common with The Prayer of St. Francis, that gave me some comfort when my dad passed away last year, I am more into native spirituality, then Christian ideology, I am not against anyone regardless of their religion, I tend to think of my self as a being spiritual agnostic, if there is such a thing.

AN INDIAN PRAYER
Oh Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the wind,
and whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear my prayer.
Let me walk in beauty through all my days.
May my eyes see sunrise freshness,
and sunset glory.
Make my hands respect the things you have made,
and my ear sharp to hear your many voices.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.
Make me wise, that I may learn the lessons you teach my people,
the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy, myself.
Oh Great Spirit, hear me.
Make me ready.
So when life fades to a last sunset,
my spirit will come to you without shame.

I recited this prayer at my dad's burial last year, but heard back from one of my sisters that it was a bunch of native mumbo jumbo, which means "a meaningless ritual". Needlessly to say I was hurt quite bad, because it was from my heart, that I wanted to share this prayer

You had every right to be hurt, friend.

As a white Christian man I see God's hand everywhere, the inscriptions which mark His intelligence and compassion. "Native mumbo jumbo" is just an attitude. It's the attitude of ignorance.

I quite enjoyed that prayer. BTW what tribe are you?

I am 1/2 Metis, mostly french cree with some sarcie, on my mom's side