Prayer for Peace

Are you giving up anything for Lent? Or is there something you are choosing to focus on during this season?

I spent most of yesterday pondering what I wanted to focus on or abstain from till Easter Sunday. In the past I've given up certain types of food and cut out t.v. While that is ok, I felt I needed something more. I wanted to center my thoughts and actions and take time everyday to pray for something specific. 

I came across an old prayer journal of my Mom's. She started the prayer journal in August of 1956. Wow! As I was reading through some of the prayers a small simple prayer card fell out from in between the pages. At the top of the prayer card it urged you to say this prayer of the gentle St. Francis of Assisi earnestly, to ponder it quietly, and to LIVE it. Then to spread it among others.

Perfect.

So this Lent I'm going to take time to Pray for Peace every day. I'm hoping that by taking time daily and putting aside my own needs and wants God can grow my heart for others. 

Prayer For 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; and 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.

~St. Francis of Assisi.

Peace, Jean