The anonymous text that is usually called the Prayer of Saint Francis (or Peace Prayer, or Simple Prayer for Peace, or Make us an Instrument of Your Peace) is a widely known Christian prayer for peace. Often associated with the Italian Saint Francis of Assisi (c. 1182 – 1226), but entirely absent from his writings, the prayer in its present form has not been traced back further than 1912. Its first known occurrence was in French, in a small spiritual magazine called La Clochette (The Little Bell), published by a Catholic organization in Paris named La Ligue de la Sainte-Messe (The League of the Holy Mass). The author's name was not given, although it may have been the founder of La Ligue, Father Esther Bouquerel. The prayer was heavily publicized during both World War I and World War II. It has been frequently set to music by notable songwriters and quoted by prominent leaders, and its broadly inclusive language has found appeal with many faiths encouraging service to others.
Text In most published versions of the prayer, the text is abridged, paraphrased or copyrighted. Below is the complete original text from its earliest known publication (1912, in French, copyright expired), alongside a line-by-line English translation:
Possible inspirations for the prayer The second half of the prayer bears a strong resemblance to this famous saying of Giles of Assisi (c. 1190 – 1262), one of Francis's closest companions:
This text appears in the last chapters of the famous Little Flowers of St. Francis, a text that was undergoing numerous translations at the time the modern prayer was composed. At face value Giles's verses appear to be heavily inspired by an earlier text themselves, both in structure and content, namely The Beatitudes of Jesus in Matthew 5:3-12 and Luke 6:20-26. The first half of the prayer also bears some similarities to Veni Sancte Spiritus in both structure and content.
Franciscan viewpoints The Franciscan Order does not include the prayer in its official "Prayers of St. Francis", and a church historian has noted that the phrasing of the first half of the text ("let me...") is atypically self-oriented for Francis: The most painful moment usually comes when [students] discover that Saint Francis did not write the "Peace Prayer of Saint Francis"... Noble as its sentiments are, Francis would not have written such a piece, focused as it is on the self, with its constant repetition of the pronouns "I" and "me", the words "God" and "Jesus" never appearing once. However, the prayer has been recommended by members of the Order, while not attributing it to Saint Francis.
Musical settings
Sebastian Temple (1967)
The most-prominent hymn version of the prayer is "Make Me a Channel of Your Peace", or simply "Prayer of St. Francis", adapted and set to a chant-like melody in 1967 by South African songwriter Sebastian Temple (born Johann Sebastian von Tempelhoff; 1928–1997), who had become a Third Order Franciscan. The hymn is an anthem of the Royal British Legion and is usually sung at its annual Festival of Remembrance. In 1997, it was part of the Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, and was performed by the Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor on the Princess Diana tribute album. The hymn was also sung for the religious wedding ceremony of Prince Albert II of Monaco to South African Charlene Wittstock in 2011.
Others Additional settings of the prayer by notable musicians include those by:
History Christian Renoux, a history professor at the University of Orléans, published in French in 2001 a book-length study of the prayer and its origins, clearing up much of the confusion that had accumulated previously. The Franciscan journal Frate Francesco and the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano published articles in Italian summarizing the book's findings, and Renoux published an online abstract in English at The Franciscan Archive.
La Clochette (1912) The earliest known record of the prayer is its appearance, as a "beautiful prayer to say during Mass", in the December 1912 issue of the small devotional French Catholic publication La Clochette, "the bulletin of the League of the Holy Mass". Although the prayer was published anonymously, Renoux concluded that, with few exceptions, the texts in La Clochette were generally written by its founding editor, Father Esther Bouquerel (1855–1923).
Mistaken attribution (1916) to 11th-century William the Conqueror
In 1915, Marquis Stanislas de La Rochethulon (1862–1945), founding president of the Anglo-French association Souvenir Normand (Norman Remembrance), which called itself "a work of peace and justice inspired by the testament of William the Conqueror, who is considered to be the ancestor of all the royal families of Europe", sent this prayer to Pope Benedict XV in the midst of World War I. The Pope had an Italian translation published on the front page of L'Osservatore Romano on 20 January 1916. It appeared under the heading, "The prayers of 'Souvenir Normand' for peace", with a jumbled explanation: "'Souvenir Normand' has sent the Holy Father the text of some prayers for peace. We have pleasure in presenting in particular the prayer addressed to the Sacred Heart, inspired by the testament of William the Conqueror." On 28 January 1916, the newspaper La Croix reprinted, in French, the article from L'Osservatore Romano, with exactly the same heading and explanation. La Rochethulon wrote to La Croix to clarify that it was not a prayer of Souvenir Normand; but he failed to mention La Clochette, the first publication in which it had appeared. Because of its appearance in L'Osservatore Romano and La Croix as a simple prayer for peace during World War I, the prayer became widely known.
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