Make Me A Channel of Your Peace

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Make Me A Channel of Your Peace
The anonymous text that is usually called the Prayer of Saint Francis, or Make Me a Channel of Your Peace, is a widely known Christian prayer for peace. It has been frequently set to music by notable songwriters and quoted by prominent leaders, and its broadly inclusive language has found appeal with diverse faiths encouraging service to others.

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred let me bring your love
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord
And where there's doubt, true faith in you

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there's despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness ever joy

Oh, master grant that I may never 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

Make me a channel of your peace
It isn't pardoning that we are pardoned
In giving to all men let we receive
And in dying that we're born to turn around

Oh, master grant that I may never 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

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there's despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness ever joy

Songwriters Anonymous Published by Public Domain

The Story Behind Make Me A Channel of Your Peace

The earliest known record of the prayer is its appearance, as a "beautiful prayer to say during Mass", in the December 1912 issue of the small devotional French Catholic publication La Clochette, "the bulletin of the League of the Holy Mass".  Although the prayer was published anonymously, Renoux concluded that, with few exceptions, the texts in La Clochette were generally written by its founding editor, Father Esther Bouquerel (1855–1923).

The most-prominent hymn version of the prayer is "Make Me a Channel of Your Peace", or simply "Prayer of St. Francis", adapted and set to a chant-like melody in 1967 by South African songwriter Sebastian Temple (Johann Sebastian von Tempelhoff, 1928–1997). The hymn is an anthem of the Royal British Legion and is usually sung at its annual Festival of Remembrance. In 1997 it was part of the Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, and was performed by the Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor on the Princess Diana tribute album.


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Prayer of St. Francis (Make Me A Channel of Your Peace) sung by Angelina

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