Channel of Peace

Today’s reflection comes from our Marketing Manager/Sales Associate, Tessa Newton. Our frequent guests are likely familiar with Tessa and her welcoming, friendly demeanor. She is looking forward to when we can all be back at the Center again.

A few weeks ago, I visited the Center to take new summer photos to share on social media. My visit corresponded with the beginning to the protests and unrest regarding social injustices within our communities and country. As I walked the grounds, racism – and the question of how I can make a difference – weighed heavily on me. And as our sacred space tends to do, it led me to just what I needed: a brick along the Pathway to Peace that reads “Make me a channel of your peace”. This prayer has not answered all of my questions of how to move forward in this tumultuous world we live in. But I have been repeating this phrase over to myself for weeks now and it has helped to guide the decisions I make, actions I take, and conversations I have. These may be small pieces of a much larger puzzle but I have comfort knowing that God is leading me to be a “channel of peace”.

Prayer of St. Francis

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.
Amen.