Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

Public domain, so these words can be printed in a ceremony script or an order of service.

The prayer is entirely absent from the writings of Francis of Assisi and has not been traced further back than 1912, when it appeared anonymously in French in a small Paris magazine called La Clochette.

The speaker asks to be used as an instrument of peace: to bring love where there is hatred, pardon where there is injury, faith, hope, light and joy where there is doubt, despair, darkness and sadness. The second half asks to want less for oneself, to console rather than be consoled, to understand rather than be understood, to love rather than be loved. It ends with three paradoxes, the last of which is about death: it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

First printed in 1912 and not actually by St Francis — but it is the one people want. Read at weddings and funerals alike. Themes: peace · giving rather than receiving · a life of service · a nurse or teacher or volunteer · gentle theology.

A life of service: a nurse, a teacher, a social worker, a volunteer, a pastor, a parent who always gave more than they took. At a funeral it describes the person; at a wedding it describes the marriage the couple want to have. It suits Catholic and Protestant families and many interfaith rooms, and it reads gently enough for families who are only loosely religious. The final line about eternal life is worth noting at a wedding, where some couples end the prayer one line early.

At a funeral, after the eulogy, as the prayer that sums up a giving life. At a wedding, after the readings or just before the vows. The officiant usually leads it; it can also be said by the whole room if it is printed.

The text on this page is 99 words. At a ceremony pace of about 130 words a minute, which is slower than conversation, that comes to about 45 seconds of reading.

• The first section is a list of pairs. Keep the pauses even and let each opposite land: hatred and love, injury and pardon.
• Slow down at “O Divine Master”. The prayer shifts from the world outside to the self.
• The final three lines start with “For it is” and “It is”. Keep them parallel, then give the last one a full stop and a pause.
• If someone asks, it is fine to say the prayer is named for St Francis rather than written by him. Nobody at a funeral needs a lecture on it.

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