Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. —The Prayer of Saint Francis

We pray for many things, for loved ones, for one sick, for one dying, for health, for much-needed money, for success in examinations, for our country, for the peace of the world. We pray for forgiveness of sins, for conquest of one particular sin that defeats us, for help in some situation that frightens or threatens us. We pray especially hard – most of us – when our own safety or security is threatened.

Sometimes we cannot pray, because we are fallen into a melancholy, and therefore have for the time lost our hope and our faith, and have no one to pray to.

I myself have done this, but now I wish to place on record that I am in unrepayable debt to Francis of Assisi, for when I pray his prayer, or even remember it, my melancholy is dispelled, my self-pity comes to an end, my faith is restored, because of this majestic conception of what the work of a disciple should be.

God moves in his own mysterious ways, but a great deal of the time he moves through us. And it is because we are not there that so many do not believe in God’s love.

So majestic is this conception that one dare no longer be sorry for oneself. This world ceases to be one’s enemy and becomes the place where one lives and works and serves. Life is no longer nasty, mean, brutish, and short, but becomes the time that one needs to make it less nasty and mean, not only for others, but indeed also for oneself.

We are brought back instantaneously to the reality of our faith, that we are not passive recipients but active instruments. The right relationship between man and God is instantly restored.

Francis of Assisi no doubt often prayed for something for himself, or for the order he had founded, or for the chapel and huts at Porziuncola. But in his prayer he asks nothing for himself, or perhaps he asks everything, and that is that his whole life, all his gifts, his physical strength, shall be an instrument in God’s hand.

And I say to myself, this is the only way in which a Christian can encounter hatred, injury, despair, and sadness, and that is by throwing off his helplessness and allowing himself to be made the bearer of love, the pardoner, the bringer of hope, the comforter of those that grieve. And I believe that if you allow yourself to be so made, you will be so.

I think as I write this of a man who is leaving prison to return to the world. During these years he has paid more attention to religion than ever before in his life. As he leaves, the prison chaplain assures him that the past is done, the past is forgiven. But when he returns to the world, he finds that the world has not forgiven, that it has not forgotten his past. So hope changes to despair, faith to doubt. It seems that God has not forgiven him after all.

It is here that a great duty falls upon us all, to be the bearers of God’s forgiveness, to be the instrument of his love, to be active in compassion. This man’s return to the world is made tragic because we were not there. God moves in his own mysterious ways, but a great deal of the time he moves through us. And it is because we are not there that so many do not believe in God’s love.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love. —The Prayer of Saint Francis

Let us leave aside for the time the immensely difficult question of what we are to do when we ourselves hate, when we ourselves are the objects of hatred, the immensely difficult question of how one can possibly love one’s enemies. Let us also leave aside for the time the immensely difficult question of how we can possibly love those who are cruel or unjust or indifferent to others. Our Lord enjoined us to love our enemies, but one of the harshest judgments he ever passed was on the man who would cause a child to stumble.

The petition of Saint Francis may be taken for the moment in an easier way, namely that he asks to be the reconciler of those who hate one another, or that he asks to be able to soften the heart of one who hates and to heal the grief and resentment and lostness of one who is hated. This is something that we can ask for ourselves. We can plead with those who hate, and encourage those who are hated; we can mediate between those who hate one another.

Yet this problem also will confront us with a great difficulty. A person who hates may find a transcendental reason (such as the love of Christ) why he should stop hating, and this transcendental reason becomes more important for him that his reasons for hating. This, of course, means that he undergoes a spiritual transformation, a conversion. But what of those who do not? How are we to help them? How are we to help people to find it easier not to hate?

To be the instrument of God’s peace is not to confine oneself to the field of personal relationships, but to concern oneself also with the problems of human society, hunger, poverty, injustice, cruelty, exploitation, war.

William Temple wrote, “More potent than school or even than home, as a moral influence, is the whole structure of society and especially its economic structure. This fixes for all their place in the general scheme; and the way in which they gain and keep that place of necessity determines a great deal of their conduct and profoundly influences their outlook upon life.”

To be the instrument of God’s peace is not to confine oneself to the field of personal relationships, but to concern oneself also with the problems of human society, hunger, poverty, injustice, cruelty, exploitation, war.

Some Christians argue that if we would only change men, then society would change of itself. That there is some truth in this, none of us doubts. But the full truth is that we must try both to change man and to change society, and that there are some changes in man that cannot be achieved without some changes in society. The front is wider than that of pure evangelism.

Such a view arouses opposition, anger, even hatred, amongst antichange Christians. They call it the social gospel, and regard it as an adulteration of the teaching of Christ. With this opposition, this anger, even hatred, we shall have later to deal.

From Alan Paton, Instrument of Thy Peace (New York: Seabury Press, 1968).