A Clue in the Prayer of Saint Francis

What will you find?

Shockingly, the Prayer of Saint Francis wasn’t written by Saint Francis of Assisi. Until writing this article I assumed it was scribed by the saint himself. Not so. According to Wikipedia, the prayer’s first known occurrence was in Paris in a little magazine called La Clochette in 1912. Saint Francis of Assisi lived from 1182-1226 and this prayer was not included in his writings.

So here’s a shout out to the anonymous author who penned the prayer and its beautiful guidance on how to live life. Bravo, il est bien fait! Well Done!

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Audio version: A Clue in the Prayer of Saint Francis

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For over twenty years, I’ve had a prayer and meditation practice. It varies and grows. I try new things. I switch it up, so I don’t zone out. A few years ago I decided to read the Prayer of Saint Francis every morning. It’s a beautiful prayer and after a few weeks I started to see little clues. I began to see it less like a prayer of remedies and more like a recipe.

If you don’t know the prayer, or haven’t read it for a while, voila…

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THE PRAYER OF SAINT FRANCIS

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace:

that where there is hatred, I may bring love;

that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;

that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;

that where there is error, I may bring truth;

that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;

that where there is despair, I may bring hope;

that where there are shadows, I may bring light;

that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to

comfort than to be comforted

to understand, than to be understood;

to love, than to be loved.

For it is by self forgetting that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Amen.

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So, I found a few clues in the prayer, but before I share them, here’s a science refresher:

Sir Albert Einstein said, “Everything in life is vibration.” 

Credit: Getty Images

This is because everything in our world is made of energy, and all energy vibrates at a specific frequency. Remember trigonometry? Remember sine waves? No? Well, imagine a wave. If you start another wave that is shifted by 180 degrees they will cancel each other out. It’s the science behind noise cancelling headphones. The net sum, the bottom line, the answer to all that vibration, will be net zero energy.

A similar thing happens with emotional vibrations. There are positive emotional vibrations that cancel out the negative ones. We know this intuitively and it’s why specific emotions are paired.

Love cancels hate.

Hope can heal despair

Harmony will realign discord

Kindness is the cure for anger.

So, as I said earlier, the prayer of St. Francis is like a recipe. But I found that it’s more than a list of positive emotions that will cancel out negative ones.

As I read the prayer each morning, I started to see new things. The first was the ‘spirit of forgiveness’. None of the other ‘recipe directions’ had a spirit associated with it. if you don’t believe me, scroll up and look at the prayer. The author didn’t tell us to bring a spirit of harmony when there’s discord, or bring a spirit of joy when there’s sadness. They didn’t write that we need to bring forgiveness itself. They wrote:

I naturally take things literally, so for me this spirit of forgiveness became more than an attitude in which to approach forgiveness. For me it became an actual spirit; a runner, a go between, a messenger. I didn’t need to bring forgiveness personally. I needed to bring the spirit of forgiveness and that spirit would help me with the actual forgiveness part. You can interpret it however you want, but I like the idea that forgiveness is a spirit. 

Then another clue in the prayer popped out. It’s an easy line to gloss over.  It’s the third line from the bottom: “For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.”

I have a bad habit when I scan things. I think I’m reading by reading the beginning of the sentence and inferring the rest. In my head what I read was: It’s by self-forgetting that…blah blah blah.” I moved on because I know the importance of self-forgetting. When I get out of myself, I connect with others, I forget about my little problems and my big problems. Even if it’s just for a few minutes, I have a relief from my SELF. That’s a good thing.

But that’s not what the prayer says. The prayer says, “For it’s by self forgetting that one finds.”

The prayer says there is something to find by self forgetting. And I think it’s more than getting out of your SELF for a minute. And, the prayer is genius because it doesn’t tell you what you’ll find. It doesn’t say you’ll find freedom, or peace, or happiness, or joy, or anything. It only says that you WILL find.

And it’s at the end of the prayer for a reason. All of the actions in the prayer put you in the mindset of self-forgetting. And when that happens, the prayer tells you, that’s when you will find.

Alas, then we have the last line of the prayer, “It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.”

I didn’t care for this line. It felt useless compared to the rest of the recipe. I mean, obviously, once I die, I’ll find out all about what happens after I die. How does that help me while I’m alive? It doesn’t. So I glossed over it.

But maybe St. Francis wasn’t talking about death. I mean, sure, maybe he was. Maybe he was giving people hope that after this life that there will be Eternal Life.

But maybe not. Maybe when he said dying, he meant what happens to us when we self-forget. Maybe self-forgetting is the dying of the self. And maybe, if we self-forget enough, what we’ll find is Eternal Life right here.

After all, all life is Energy. And energy is neither created or destroyed. It’s everywhere and in every moment. Maybe that’s what we get to wake up to when we self forget. We’ll awaken to this life and be present to see it unfold.

When you self-forget, what do you find?

Here's a few things I awakened to this morning. Energy sure comes in beautiful forms.

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