PRAYING
WITH SAINT FRANCIS
FOR PEACE
To pray for peace with St
Francis is to acknowledge that peace is an inner process that begins within
each one of us and spreads out globally. As we become centers of inner peace,
these centers become fields of consciousness with the circumferences of each
center expanding and merging with the other fields surrounding other
centers, until potentially a field of inner peace and light will encompass
and enfold the entire planet.
How then do we go about actively anchoring our individual
heart and inner light centers of peace to the planet?
In our everyday lives, and to the extent we are conscious witnesses to the
moment-by-moment choices that are ours to make, we have abundant opportunities
to momentarily pause and choose the way of peace, choose to respond from an inner place
that transcends differences and reinforces knowledge of our
oneness:
From the perspective of depth
psychology comes the premise that what I judge others to be, that I am too.
When my empathy flows towards another it is because I am that one also.
In
ceasing to see evil as "out there," I own my shadow, my humanity, my sameness, my
tendencies and vulnerability to think and act
similarly.
Only then can I choose to move away from seeing through the two eyes of
duality to perceiving through the single eye of unitary consciousness.
In
Jungian terms, I withdraw my projections. Or as the master of depth
psychology has said:
The best political, social,
and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow
onto others.
From
the wisdom of Jesuit mystic and scientist,Teilhard de Chardin, comes the
thought that with a sufficient number of
persons daily choosing the way of individual peace-making, an evolutionary shift in the collective
consciousness is gaining force and moving towards a point when, he writes,
Nothing in the
Universe [will be able to]
resist the converging of a great enough number of united and organized
intelligences.
Someday, [he foretells] after mastering the winds, the waves,
the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and
then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have
discovered fire.
And so with the beloved Saint
Francis we can choose love over fear as together we pray:
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
Below is a more recent
version of the Prayer attributed to St Francis in the form of affirmations found
on line at www.askrealjesus.com
Lord, I choose to BE an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, I AM the Flame of Love.
Where there is injury, I AM the Flame of Justice.
Where there is doubt, I AM the Flame of Truth.
Where there is despair, I AM the Flame of Vision.
Where there is darkness, I AM the Light of the world.
Where there is sadness, I AM the Flame of Blissful Joy.
O Divine Master, I chose to console others and in so doing find your
consolation.
I chose to understand others and in so doing find your understanding.
I chose to love others and in so doing find your love for me.
For it is in giving of ourselves to others that we receive more of you.
It is in forgiving others that we find your forgiveness.
It is in letting the ego die that we are reborn into the eternal life of
being the Living Christ—on Earth as we are in Heaven, now and forever
MORE.
It is when we dare to BE here below all that we are Above that the Earth
will be here below all that she is in the heart of God. And thus I AM the
Golden Age made manifest, as I love God’s flame of Ecstatic Peace with all
my heart, soul and mind. For I AM the light of the world, and as long as I
AM in the world, there is peace on Earth and God’s will toward all life.