Prayer for Peace
On the night before he died, Jesus made a bequest. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you" (John 14:27). Every prayer for peace in the Christian tradition is a way of claiming that inheritance. The world's peace depends on quiet circumstances; the peace of Christ is given, and it holds even when nothing around us is quiet.
The prayers gathered here ask for that peace in three widening circles: peace within the heart, peace passed between people, and peace for the world. The Maronite tradition, born in a land that has known too little of it, has prayed all three for sixteen centuries.
The Peace Prayer of Saint Francis
The most beloved prayer for peace in the Western tradition. It first appeared in print in 1912, in a small French devotional magazine, and is not found in the writings of Saint Francis of Assisi himself. But it captures the Franciscan spirit so faithfully that it has carried his name around the world.
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.
O divine Master, 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 in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Notice what the prayer never asks. It never asks to feel peaceful. It asks to become a channel through which peace passes to someone else, and the feeling follows the giving.
The Rite of Peace in the Maronite Liturgy
The Maronite Church prays for peace with its hands. In the Maronite Divine Liturgy, the Qurbono, the sign of peace is not a casual greeting exchanged between neighbors. It begins at the altar.
The celebrant receives peace from the holy gifts themselves. He passes it to the servers, hands folded over hands, and the servers carry it down into the congregation. Each person receives the peace and turns to hand it on, until it has traveled, person to person, to the last row.
The gesture is a whole theology. Peace is not something the community generates by goodwill; it is received from Christ at the altar and transmitted. Anyone who has watched the peace ripple through a Maronite congregation has seen a prayer for peace answered in real time, hand by hand.
The Jesus Prayer: A Path to Stillness
For peace of mind in the hours between liturgies, the Eastern tradition offers one sentence, prayed slowly.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
The monks who shaped Maronite spirituality repeated this prayer with the rhythm of the breath, hundreds of times a day, until it prayed itself beneath their work and their sleep. The goal is not emptiness but presence: a heart quiet enough to notice that God is in the room.
Begin with five minutes. Sit still, breathe slowly, and let the words keep pace with the breath. When the mind wanders, and it will, return without commentary. The return itself is the prayer.
A Prayer for Peace in the World and in Lebanon
The Maronite Church has never had the luxury of praying for peace in the abstract. This prayer is adapted from the tradition's intercessions for the world and for Lebanon, the land of its saints.
Lord of all peace, look on the world you love: on every land at war, on every home divided, on every heart at war with itself. Give wisdom to leaders, courage to peacemakers, and rest to those who flee. Remember Lebanon, land of the cedars, mountain of saints and martyrs; keep her people in your hand and her churches in your light. Make of every nation one family at your table, and begin the peace of the world in me. Amen.
The last line matters most. The tradition insists that intercession for the world is honest only when it includes the one praying.
Scripture of Peace
These are the passages the Church places on the lips of those who seek peace, for the night, for the mind, and for one another.
Psalm 4:8
"In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."
Isaiah 26:3
"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you."
Philippians 4:7
"And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Numbers 6:24-26
"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."
This last text, the Aaronic blessing, is the oldest blessing in the Bible, and it ends where every blessing ends: with peace. Parents have prayed it over children for three thousand years.
Saint Charbel and the Peace of the Hermitage
Saint Charbel Makhlouf spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a hermitage above the monastery of Annaya, in silence. He did not withdraw because he despised the world. He withdrew the way a spring withdraws underground, to run clearer.
The peace of his cell did not stay in his cell. Pilgrims climbed the mountain during his lifetime to stand near it, and they still come, more than a century after his death, reporting the same unexplained calm at his tomb. His witness is the quiet claim of this whole page: peace is real, it is received in prayer, and it overflows to others without a single word.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best prayer for inner peace?
The Jesus Prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me"), repeated slowly and matched to the breath, is the Eastern tradition's central practice for stilling the heart. The Peace Prayer of Saint Francis is the most widely prayed peace prayer in the West. Many people pray one for stillness and the other for direction.
What is the Prayer of Saint Francis?
It is the prayer beginning "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace," which asks to sow love where there is hatred and pardon where there is injury. It first appeared in print in 1912 and is not found in Saint Francis' own writings, but it expresses the Franciscan spirit so faithfully that it has carried his name ever since.
What does "Peace I leave with you" mean?
In John 14:27, spoken on the night before his death, Jesus distinguishes his peace from the world's. The world's peace depends on circumstances, on the absence of trouble. The peace of Christ is a gift that holds within trouble, which is why he could offer it hours before the cross.
How do you pray for world peace?
Concretely. The tradition names a place, a people, or a conflict rather than an abstraction, and intercession for peace appears in every celebration of the Maronite Divine Liturgy. The Prayer of Saint Francis adds the personal dimension: asking to become an instrument of the peace being prayed for.
What is the Rite of Peace in the Maronite liturgy?
In the Maronite Qurbono, the peace flows from the altar. The celebrant receives it from the holy gifts, passes it to the servers, and they carry it hand to hand through the whole congregation. The gesture teaches that peace is received from Christ and transmitted, not manufactured.
See also: Prayer for Anxiety. Prayer for Stress. The Maronite Divine Liturgy. The Maronite Rosary. Saint Charbel Makhlouf. The Maronite tradition.