The Prayer of St. Francis: A Canticle for Spouses
/CORINNE GANNOTTI
Do you know the Prayer of St. Francis? That old peace prayer set to music in the 60's with a tune you can likely identify after only a few bars?
PHOTOGRAPHY: LAURA AND MATTHEW AS SEEN IN TIANA + AJ’S FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY PORT WEDDING
I have many memories of singing it as part of monthly school liturgies and events at my Catholic School growing up. These days, I've found myself singing it to my infant daughter as I try to lull her to sleep in the evenings.
Swaying back and forth slowly with her in my arms, I pray the words over her life - with hope that one day she can bring pardon where there is injury and joy where there is sadness and love where there is hatred.
One night recently, while I rocked my daughter and meditated on the words I was quietly singing, the spousal quality of the prayer struck me. I was honestly overcome as I considered for the first time ever how meaningful they could be for meditation within the context of married life.
Every line seemed to take on a new shape as I began to pray them more as a wife than a mother.
A prayer that I already found such beauty in and have known for so long seemed to hold an entirely new character - inviting me to consider the ways in which God gives me a chance to love my husband.
Each petition, sung from the heart of a spouse, seemed so piercingly true. It listed exactly what I needed to bring to God in prayer as a wife.
Asking for Him to purify my desires so I could truly seek first the good of the other. Less focus on my own needs to be consoled, understood, and loved. An increase in my desire to console first, seek understanding, and act in love. Because in marriage, as in all things, it is in giving that we receive.
I became convicted through that experience that I need to revisit this prayer often. Each line offers examples of the kinds of graces I might posture my heart to receive from the Lord to then bless my spouse with.
We can easily focus on ourselves in relationships, but becoming too preoccupied on how things impact us does have a price. It can keep us from loving generously if we're not careful. It can make us much less capable of choosing to pardon injury or offer joy in the face of sadness. It makes us less willing to try and understand when we feel misunderstood.
The Prayer of St. Francis may or may not be your favorite, but its self-reflective words can offer meaningful contemplation on Christ-like love lived out.
And while St. Francis himself is not the author of this lovely meditation (listen to this great podcast from Trent Horn if you're interested in how the prayer came to bear his name), I feel confident he would encourage us to live in this way. Francis, the champion preacher of humility who was a living model of what it means to put others before self, would no doubt remind us to identify our poverty before God and beg Him for the grace we need to do what is asked of us - to make Him present through the manner in which we live our lives.
Pray with me? That God may grant us the grace to become the kind of person this prayer describes. To be an instrument of peace within our marriages. For our sake and for the sake of the one whom we love.
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.
Amen.
About the Author: Corinne studied Theology and Catechetics at Franciscan University where she met her husband, Sam. They were married in 2016 and now live in Pennsylvania with their two children, Michael and Vera, and where she continues to work in the ministry field. She especially enjoys reading stories with her 3 year old, running, and crossing things off her to-do list. She desires to live a life marked by joy, and is grateful to have a family who makes that effort much easier by helping her take herself less seriously.