As a part of our effort to increase and improve prayer during the Year of Faith,

we will be praying a different devotion each month at the end of Mass. Please
take this prayer home with you and pray with your family!

January 2012— The Prayer of St. Francis

This month, Holy Spirit is joining its prayers to those of the

universal church for peace and Christian unity. St. Francis is a
wonderful example of a person who worked for peace and unity Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi
among the Christian people by building up the Church through
renewal. By entering into prayer about how the Lord was calling Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
him to build up the church, Francis was taken on a journey of
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
conversion that not only brought him from sinfulness to a life of
holiness, but from one level of holiness to the next.
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
The Prayer of St. Francis embodies much of the spirit that St. where there is despair, hope;
Francis taught and gave as an example not only to those who where there is darkness, light;
were in his order, but to everyone he met. This prayer, while not and where there is sadness, joy.
written by St. Francis himself, brings before us the values of
pausing for reflection, of considering the needs and the hurts of
others, and of asking for the grace to look more and more like O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
Jesus.
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
We live in a world that has much suffering, and in the midst of
that suffering we are mindful of the hurts that we bear and the
to be loved as to love.
hurts that we have borne to others. May our prayers for peace For it is in giving that we receive;
and unity together with the Church move us through those hurts it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
to the surpassing peace Jesus invites us to and the love we are and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen
called to proclaim.