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Welcome! I hope you found this because of your interest in spiritual development. Whether or not you agree that "love" is not a translation of "agape," I want to hear from you, so please contact me at agapeworker@gmail.com.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Peace Prayer revision

In the Conclusion of my Agape Prayer book, I used the following revision of the famous international Peace Prayer (it appeared in many languages beginning in 1912 and was finally translated in English in 1929 in a Quaker magazine, where it was attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. In that translation, the expression “sow love” was used in a spiritual way that seems to mean what we have come to recognize as agape. So on this 11th anniversary of the 9/11/01 massacre I offer the following revision):
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow agape.
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.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to receive agape, as to spread agape.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.”

There also was a variation delivered by Mother Theresa of Calcutta when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1979 and when she addressed the United Nations in 1985. Because of her work, I think I can keep the meaning by changing ‘love’ to ‘agape’ as follows:
“Make us worthy Lord to serve others throughout the world,
who live and die in poverty and hunger.
Give them through our hands, this day, their daily bread
and by agape give peace and joy.
Lord, make me a channel of thy peace.
That where there is hatred, I may bring agape,
That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness,
That where there is discord, I may bring harmony,
That where there is error, I may bring truth,
That where there is doubt, I may bring faith,
That where there is despair, I may bring hope,
That where there are shadows, I may bring light,
That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted,
To understand than to be understood,
To spread agape than to receive agape.
For it is by forgetting self that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven,
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.
                                                (quoted in Wikipedia, “Prayer of Saint Francis”)

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