Make Me a Channel of Your Peace
The famous prayer of St Francis - probably not written by him - was put to some beautiful music by a South African songwriter in unusual circumstances. Hear the story and let's take a look at the wonderful words of this prayer.
Welcome to another Friday Classic Hymn. This last weekend I was privileged to be the spiritual director on an Emmaus weekend. If you've never done the Walk to Emmaus, it's something to look at - it's a beautiful retreat that really refreshes your faith in an amazing way. At one point in the weekend we said the Prayer of St Francis, which is a lovely prayer to just consecrate yourself to God.
This reminded me of a song that we used to sing often at church which uses these words. I was looking it up during the week and discovered that it has roots in South Africa, which made me smile being my own country. So I thought for this week's Friday Classic I could tell you the story of this adaptation of the Prayer of St Francis.
I wonder if this is part of your worship life? Do you sing this one at your church? Has it been part of your Christian journey? We used to sing this quite a lot in the church I grew up in, and we've been singing it here and there at my church as well because it's just a beautiful melody, so easy to sing, with beautiful words. Please share your thoughts, your reflections, your comments on the song down below - that would be great.
By the way, please check out my other channel where I share my daily devotion clips. I would love for you to have a look at those. Thank you as always to those who support this ministry by donating through Patreon or PayPal - I'm so grateful.
The Story Behind "Make Me a Channel of Your Peace"
St Francis of Assisi is a well-known Catholic monk from the 12th century. Francis had a radical conversion. Having been living a very comfortable and rich life, he had a remarkable encounter with God and sold everything, gave up everything to become a poor monk and a beggar. In fact, he would travel around preaching on the streets, had no possessions, and started an order within the church which did a lot of good and inspired a lot of people to the faith.
But here's where it gets strange - these words, which are so often or always known as the Prayer of St Francis, can't be found in any of his writings. It somehow became known that this was the Prayer of St Francis, but nowhere does he seem to use this prayer. In fact, the first time you see the prayer in this form was in France in a magazine in 1912. Throughout the World Wars, this prayer was often just spread around as the Prayer of St Francis, something that should be prayed because it is a beautiful prayer for peace.
This particular version is a beautiful piece of music, and it was written by Sebastian Temple - or his actual name is Jan Sebastian Font Templehoff, but obviously he made it a little bit easier by calling himself Sebastian Temple. He was born in South Africa and ended up moving to England and then later to America. He became a Catholic and joined the Franciscan Third Order. It was on a retreat where he was writing some songs based on St Francis's prayers that this song came about.
In Ian Bradley's book The Penguin Book of Hymns, he mentions that Temple wrote to him and said this about the song: "I wrote so easily and so prolifically that I took for granted that I could write music to the Peace Prayer of St Francis. The album's other 12 songs fell out of my lips and onto a tape recorder very easily, and I wrote them in 2 days. The third day was left for the Peace Prayer. Though inspirations for all came easily to me, its strange form drove me crazy. I could not come up with anything that sounded like music to my ears. I tried for a whole morning but nothing came. Finally I was disgusted, looked at the little statue of St Francis on my shelf and said angrily, 'Well if you want to write it, you do it. I can't!' I got up, went to the kitchen, made a cup of tea and drank it. When I returned to the guitar I picked it up, had the tape running, and the song fell out of my mouth as it was recorded a few days later."
They had requested that he write some of these songs based on St Francis's prayers, and this one just didn't come until it did, and then it came very quickly. This is often the case with songwriters - they talk about how at the right moment something just sparks and the song comes out.
The song became very popular, especially in England. In fact, it was used at Princess Diana's funeral in 1997, and it was also used at the marriage of Prince Albert II of Monaco to Charlene Wittstock in 2011. So a very common and popular hymn in that part of the world. Temple died in 1997 and never really saw the song get the popularity that it has now. As I said, we sang it quite a lot in our church, and it's appeared in many hymnals ever since it became popular.
For me, the song has really blessed me because of its words. So let's take a look at its words, which are pretty much directly from the prayer itself.
What Do the Lyrics of "Make Me a Channel of Your Peace" Mean?
Verse 1
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.
This is the line that keeps getting repeated in the song - make me a channel of your peace. A channel is something through which something else flows. So he's saying I want to channel Your peace, Lord. When people come into contact with me, Your peace must flow through me. That's a great prayer to pray.
Any Christian is trying to, in a sense, channel God's Spirit and God's grace to others. So this is a good prayer to pray - make me a channel of Your peace, a channel of Your grace, a channel of Your love - all sorts of things, but a channel through which God can work.
Where there is hatred, he says, let me bring your love. So in situations where there is hatred, I want to be a channel of God's love. Let God's love bring resolution to situations where there's hatred.
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord. I remember as a kid I thought of the word injury as sports injuries, and I always thought it was weird that we sang about injuries in church! But of course he's talking about people who are wounded, who have been injured. I suppose because he's saying "I want to bring your pardon into the situation", your forgiveness, he's talking about especially being injured by other people. Let me be the one who brings forgiveness and mercy into the situation.
Where there's doubt, he says, true faith in you. I want to be one who channels God's peace in a way that brings faith, so that where there is doubt about God, faith begins to come forth. What a great thing to pray - Lord, let these things come through me.
Every Christian wants to be used by God in these ways, don't we? We should at least be praying this perhaps every day, or at least occasionally. It's a wonderful way to avail yourself to the work of God.
Verse 2
Make me a channel of your peace: where there's despair in life, let me bring hope.
This is what Jesus did, didn't He? He walked into situations of despair and brought hope. We as His followers are to do the same, to offer hope and comfort to those in a sense of despair.
Where there is darkness, only light.
I don't want to bring anything that's dark - I want to just bring the light, the love of God, light that dispels darkness, light that gets rid of evil. Let Your light shine through me, Lord. That's a great prayer to pray. Of course, Jesus said that we are the light of the world. He first said "I am the light of the world", but He also said "You, My followers, are the light of the world." So where you go, darkness should flee. Great prayer to pray that this happens through you.
And where there's sadness, ever joy.
Let my presence bring joy. Let my faith and my deep channelling of God's Spirit bring joy wherever I go. That's a big ask. Sometimes we feel, "How can I be the one who brings God's joy into people's lives?" But hopefully through what I offer God, in the way that I live my life, joy comes forth. I hope that in your situation, wherever you live, whatever you do in your day-to-day life, that God's joy emanates through you so that other people can also find joy, even in the midst of sadness.
Verse 3
Make me a channel of your peace: it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
Here it changes. Instead of "where there is a situation, let me bring what's needed", he changes it here.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, in giving to all men that we receive, and in dying that we're born to eternal life.
He brings across these parallels, or these opposites I suppose.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned - actually in Scripture, Jesus said if you forgive others, you will be forgiven. So he's saying, Lord, let me be one who forgives that I may also be forgiven.
It is in giving to all men that we receive - of course Paul quotes Jesus in the book of Acts saying that Jesus said it's more blessed to give than to receive. So it's when we give that we actually receive the greatest blessings.
And it's in dying that we're born to eternal life - so dying to self, we are born again and eternal life is ours. Make me a channel of Your peace so that through me these things come.
Isn't this beautiful? Aren't these wonderful words to pray?
Chorus
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.
He's saying I don't want to be a person who's just seeking to get for myself. Instead of just looking to be consoled, I want to be one who looks to console others and to give to them rather than to receive, as that other verse said.
I don't want to so much be looking to be understood and get everyone to get my point of view, as to be the one who understands and who offers an understanding ear and a listening ear to those in need.
Let me never seek to be loved as much as to love. I'd rather seek to love others and care for them with the love of Jesus than to just expect everybody to be loving me.
Conclusion
The whole prayer is a backing away from selfishness and an embracing of godliness, so that through you God may be shown. Less of me - I'm reminded of the words of John when he said, "He must become greater; I must become less." Less of me, more of Him in my life.
What words spoke to you today? Is there a verse or a line here that made you think, "Yes, I need to pray this in my life", or "I need to live this way in my life"? I love these words and I always find this a beautiful one to sing.
Thank you again for your support. I appreciate you being part of my channel.
References
Bradley, I. 1989. The Penguin Book of Hymns. Penguin Group: London
McLelland, J. 1994. The Ambassador Book of Great Hymn Stories. Ambassador Productions Ltd: Belfast
