MAKE ME AN INSTRUMENT OF YOUR PEACE
Peace may sound simple – one beautiful word – but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal.” –Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999)
IMAGINE by GREGORIAN (Masters of Chant)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9–SqLmaeNc[/youtube]
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,
Where there is sadness, joy.
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 pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
AMEN.
How many times have I read or quoted or prayed this prayer attributed to St.
Francis of Assisi . . .???
St. Francis desires to be used as an “instrument.” Am I considering myself as one also? Or am I the boss of my thoughts and actions? Whatever good results or benefits I have earned, I take all the credits, saying to myself: “Brava Ross” !?
I begun thinking about what I was reading.. and quoting…and praying!
Let’s emphasize the word “INSTRUMENT“…can you think of an object which you find useful?
Let me use my guitar as an instrument to illustrate what I mean.
What can it do?
- it can be picked up or put down
- it’s music can bring peace, unity or it can bring harshness, discord
- if it’s well made, it makes a prettier sound
- it’s useless without someone playing it
the more talented or gifted the person who plays it, the lovelier the sound and an effective rapport is build up with the listener.
Lord, You must make me an instrument of Your peace. I am not capable. I have my moods and temper. Yes, I can try…but it will always be a a hit or miss proposition.
When fatigue and impatience sets in, I’m vulnerable to say something hateful or do something bestial and hurt someone in the process…
Use me Lord as your humble instrument to bring out peace, harmony and love into my world…inside my heart, in my home, where I work , wherever I am and whoever I meet along my way.
Use me as your forgiveness.
Use me as your joy.
Use me as your light.
Use me as your faith, hope and love.
In short, please use me as an instrument of your Peace so that through me, they will know You, that You really exist NOT as Someone somewhere out there BUT Someone near us, walking with us!
PEACE is my dream, I will work for it with all my strength with the ONE who created me for those whom He has given me as companions in my life journey.
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace
P.S.
My buddy, BrotherBlue is one of those who is spreading the Globe peace movement (Dona Nobis Pacem = Grant us Peace ) of its founder, Mimi. I know my post came out late as I’ve just found out about it last night but I believe there is no time limit for anyone who wants to be a peace maker.
PAX et BONUM !!
PEACE QUOTES
Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.” – Buddha (560-483 B.C.)
I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.” – Mother Theresa (1910-1997)
It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.” –Corazon Aquino (ex President of the Philippines)
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” –John Muir (1838-1914)
Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” –Matthew, V:9
Peace is every step.” –Thich Nhat Hahn
If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.” Lao Tzu (570-490 B.C.)
But peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people. So let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper, let us strive to build peace, a desire for peace, a willingness to work for peace in the hearts and minds of all of our people. I believe that we can. I believe the problems of human destiny are not beyond the reach of human beings.” –John F. Kennedy
We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but on the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow, we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race, which no one can win, to a positive contest to harness humanity’s creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a peace race. If we have a will – and determination – to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.” – Martin Luther King, Jr
Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the spirit. Soldiers usually win battles and generals get the credit for them. You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war. If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.” – Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.” – Black Elk (1863-1950)
There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace.” – Kofi Annan
Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.” -The XIVth Dalai Lama
If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” – Moshe Dayan
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” -Albert Einstein
like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.” –Dwight D. Eisenhower
It is possible to live in peace.” –Mahatma Gandhi
Nothing is more precious than peace. Peace is the most basic starting point for the advancement of humankind.” – Daisaku Ikeda
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” –Isaiah, II:4
One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.” –Martin Luther King, Jr
All we are saying is give peace a chance.” –John Lennon
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war. ” – Maria Montessori
Dream always of a peaceful, warless, disarmed world.” –Robert Muller
Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.” – Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)
The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.” –Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
Five enemies of peace inhabit us – avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.” – Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374)
To reach peace, teach peace.” – Pope John Paul II
The true and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms, but in mutual trust alone. ” – Pope John XXIII (1881-1963)
Peace is not the product of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent revolt of violent repression.
Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution
of all to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity.
It is right and it is duty. ” – Bishop Oscar Romero (1917-1980)
It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.” – Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
In the hearts of people today there is a deep longing for peace. When the true spirit of peace is thoroughly dominant, it becomes an inner experience with unlimited possibilities. Only when this really happens – when the spirit of peace awakens and takes possession of men’s hearts, can humanity be saved from perishing.” – Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.” – Baruch Spinoza
All works of love are works of peace.” – Mother Theresa
Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” – UNESCO Constitution
Peace comes from being able to contribute the best that we have, and all that we are, toward creating a world that supports everyone. But it is also securing the space for others to contribute the best that they have and all that they are.” – Hafsat Abiola
I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.-” Hellen Keller
You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist.” – India Gandhi
Peace is not achieved by controlling nations, but mastering our thoughts.” – John Harricharan
Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.” – John Lenon
I first learned the concepts of non-violence in my marriage.” – Mohandas K. Gandhi
People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.” –Ramona L. Anderson
Peace – the word evokes the simplest and most cherished dream of humanity. Peace is, and has always been, the ultimate human aspiration. And yet our history overwhelmingly shows that while we speak incessantly of peace, our actions tell a very different story.” – Javier Perez de Cuellar
Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the triumph of truth. Peace is all of these and more and more. ”
– Menachem Begin
Nonviolence, pacifism, that’s the greatest thing that I think the human species has to aspire to, because otherwise it’s not going to be around.” – Martin Scorsese
Every one of us can make a contribution. And quite often we are looking for the big things and forget that, wherever we are, we can make a contribution. Sometimes I tell myself, I may only be planting a tree here, but just imagine what’s happening if there are billions of people out there doing something. Just imagine the power of what we can do.” – Wangari Maathai
If we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice in the future, we will have to sow seeds of nonviolence, here and now, in the present.” – Mairead Corrigan Maguire
The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph, because the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race, will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise. Thus shall we live, because we will have created a society which recognizes that all people are born equal, with each entitled in equal measure to life, liberty, prosperity, human rights and good governance. Such a society should never allow again that there should be prisoners of conscience nor that any person’s human rights should be violated.
– Nelson Mandela
We have thought of peace as the passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest-cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences.
– M. P. Follett
The making of peace is a continuing process that must go on from day to day, from year to year, so long as our civilization shall last.”
– J. William Fulbright
It is easier to lead men to combat and to stir up their passions than to temper them and urge them to the patient labors of peace.
–Andre Gide
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”
– Mother Teresa.
Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.”
-John F. Kennedy
Peace, like charity, begins at home.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
Filed under: DONA NOBIS PACEM, FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, LOVE, PEACE, PEACE QUOTES, QUOTES, SPIRITUAL by Ross
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