A simple prayer

Jesus, please make me a Christian.

Peace Prayer

Lord make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is injury, let me bring pardon.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair in life, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring light.
Where there's sadness, let me bring joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not seek
so much to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love with all my soul.
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

I first heard these words in the famous song called the Prayer of St. Francis by Sebatian Temple a long time ago, sometime back in my early childhood. When I was in college, the song, and hence the prayer, was very important to me especially as it was one of the songs I kept singing (quietly to myself in prayer) Holy Thursday of 1999, the first time I had ever spent all night with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. That was the semester that I had discovered that God was not just an idea to be pondered, not just someone to be discribed, but a person who loves and wants a relationship with each one of us, that He wants a relationship with me.

Looking back now, almost 7 years, I see just how important this prayer is in my life. It is very easy for me to get caught up in myself, to pay attention to only my own needs and wants, my own desires and wounds. I don't want my wounds and wants to drive me to search for my own healing anymore, rather I want them to help me know what others might be experiencing too and to drive me to be attentive to others.

Lord, please help me to no longer seek the fulfillment of my own desires or the healing of my own wounds, but rather use these struggles and these wants to open me up towards others, to want their good, to sympathize in their pains, and to pay attention to their needs. Amen.