St. Francis Prayer

We will want the good that is in us all, even in the worst of us, to flower and grow. Most certainly we shall need bracing air and an abundanceoffood.Butfirstofallweshallwantsunlight;nothing muchcan grow inthe dark. Meditationis our stepout into the sun.How,then,shallwemeditate?

The actual experience of meditation and prayer across the centuries is, of course, immense. The world’s libraries and places of worship are a treasure trove for all seekers. It is to be hoped that every A.A. Who has a religious connection which emphasizes meditation will return to the practice of that devotion as never before. But what about the rest of us who, less fortunate, don’t even know how to begin?

Well, we might start like this. First let’s look at a really good prayer. We won’t have far to seek; the great men and women of all religions have left us a wonderful supply. Here let us consider one that is a classic.

It’s author was a man who for several hundred years now has been rated as a saint. We won’t be biased or scared off by that fact, because although he was not an alcoholic he did, like us, go through the emotional wringer. And as he came out the other side of that painful experience, this prayer was his expression of what he could then see, feel, and wish to become:

“Lord, make me a channel of thy peace - that where there is hatred, I may bring love -that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness-that where there is discord, I may bring harmony -that where there is error, I may bring truth -that where there is doubt, I may bring faith -that where there is despair, I may bring hope -that where there are shadows, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted - to understand, than to be understood -to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. Itis by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.

”As beginners in meditation, we might now reread this prayer several times very slowly, savoring every word and trying to take in the deep meaning of each phrase and idea. It will help if we can drop all resistance to what our friend says. For in meditation, debate has no place. We rest quietly with the thoughts of someone who knows, so that we may experience and learn.

As though lying upon a sunlit beach, let us relax and breathe deeply of the spiritual atmosphere with which the grace of this prayer surrounds us. Let us become willing to partake and be strengthened and lifted upby the sheer spiritual power, beauty. And love which these magnificent words are the carriers. Let us look now up the sea and ponder what its mystery is; and let us lift our eyes to the far horizon, beyond which we shall seek all those wonders still unseen.

“Lord, make me a channel of thy peace -that where there is hatred, I may bring love -that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness -that where there is discord, I may bring harmony -that where there is error, I may bring truth -that where there is doubt, I may bring faith -that where there is despair, I may bring hope-that where there are shadows, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted -to understand, than to be understood -to love, than to be loved .For it is by self-forgetting that that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. Itis by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.”