The Prayer of St. Francis is a well-known Christian prayer for peace. It came into wide use during WWI, and it has frequently been set to music. This simple prayer asks for God’s grace to be an oasis of peace and love, even if the world around us is in turmoil in these contentious times. Thus, it seems an apt prayer from which to take the theme of Respect Life Month in 2020 for Our Lady of Mount Carmel: Let Me Sow Love. These are troubling times, but the Lord calls us to be one human family, united in love for Him. May we follow the Lord’s example by loving one another. In doing so, we lay down our lives to defend the sanctity of all human life by inspiring the spread of justice and peace.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I 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.