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Saturday 19 June 2021

Desert Island Hymns


Estelle Ward has chosen “Make me a channel of your peace” as her Desert Island Hymns.  She comments “This for me is always sung on sad occasions that remind me of happy times. First time I remember is my leavers service from Palace Gate my first school at 11.  That at MAYC (Methodist Association of Youth Clubs) events as well family funerals. All sad events but looking back over very happy times and find it a lovely reminder, A good hymn to live by.”

The anonymous text that is usually called the Prayer of Saint Francis (or Peace Prayer, or Simple Prayer for Peace, or Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace) is a widely known Christian prayer for peace. Often associated with the Italian Saint Francis of Assisi (c. 1182 – 1226), but entirely absent from his writings, the prayer in its present form has not been traced back further than 1912. Its first known occurrence was in French, in a small spiritual magazine called La Clochette (The Little Bell), published by a Catholic Church organisation in Paris named La Ligue de la Sainte-Messe (The League of the Holy Mass). The author's name was not given, although it may have been the founder of La Ligue, Father Esther Bouquerel. The prayer was heavily publicised during both World War I and World War II. 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.


The prayer also has similarities to the writings of the prophet Isaiah in Chapter 61, where negatives become positives through a transformative work of God. Here the writer declares that the Lord is about to turn despair into praise and mourning will be turned into joy:- "to bestow on them (those in Zion) a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair". (Isaiah 61:1-3, NIV)


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 is doubt true faith in You


Make me a channel of your peace

Where there is 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 is in pardoning that we are pardoned

It is in giving to all men that we receive

And in dying that we are born to eternal life


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


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