A Channel of Your Peace

I’ve been working on the adult Sunday School lesson for the upcoming week, and decided to use a well-known and loved prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.

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”.

The most-prominent hymn version of the prayer is “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace”,  adapted and set to a chant-like melody in 1967 by South African songwriter Sebastian Temple (Johann Sebastian von Tempelhoff, 1928–1997).

We sometimes use this song in our Via de Cristo community.  It’s especially appropriate in connection with the talk on “Environment” and how each of us can be a positive, Christian influence wherever God has placed us.