How Preghiera di San Francesco Onnipotente Reshaped My Perspective

The first time I whispered the words of Preghiera di San Francesco Onnipotente, it wasn’t in a church or during a moment of crisis. It was late, the kind of late where the house hums with silence, and the weight of the day presses down like a stone. I’d stumbled upon it in a book left behind by a friend—a small, worn volume with pages that smelled of old wood and rain. The prayer wasn’t a plea or a bargain; it was an offering, a surrender. “Make me an instrument of your peace,” I read, and something in me shifted, not dramatically, but like a door cracking open after years of being sealed shut.

What struck me most was the raw honesty of the words. There’s no grandeur, no promise of miracles. Just a request to be used, to serve, to love where there’s hatred. It’s the kind of prayer that doesn’t ask for strength but for the willingness to be broken and remade. As theologian Thomas Merton once wrote, “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.” That’s what this prayer does—it strips away the ego, the need to control, and leaves you bare, ready to be filled with something larger than yourself.

The rhythm of the words became a habit, not out of obligation but necessity. I’d recite it on the train, under my breath, while waiting for the platform to clear. It wasn’t about devotion in the traditional sense; it was about alignment. The prayer doesn’t demand perfection. It acknowledges the messiness of being human—where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light. It’s a blueprint for living, not just believing. And in a world that often feels like it’s spinning out of control, that blueprint became my anchor.

One evening, after a particularly brutal argument with someone I loved, I found myself sitting on the floor of my kitchen, the prayer spilling out of me like a reflex. The words didn’t fix anything immediately, but they changed how I saw the conflict. Instead of digging in my heels, I asked myself: Where can I bring peace here? It wasn’t about winning or being right. It was about choosing to be the instrument, even when it hurt. That shift—from reaction to intention—was the prayer’s quiet revolution in my life.

I’ve never been one for rituals, but this became something different. It wasn’t about repetition; it was about reminder. A reminder that peace isn’t passive, that love is a verb, that forgiveness isn’t weakness. The prayer doesn’t promise ease, but it offers clarity. As Pope Francis has noted, “The prayer of St. Francis is a school of life, a path to follow.” And follow it I did, not blindly, but with eyes wide open to the cracks in my own heart where light could enter.

There’s a line in the prayer that always catches me: “It is in giving that we receive.” I used to think that was paradoxical, even naive. But over time, I saw it play out in small, unremarkable ways. A stranger’s smile after I held the door. The weight lifting from my chest after I let go of a grudge. The prayer doesn’t ask for grand gestures; it asks for consistency. Show up, even when it’s hard. Love, even when it’s inconvenient. And in that showing up, you find something unexpected—not reward, but purpose.

Now, when I say the words, they feel like home. Not the kind of home that’s safe and predictable, but the kind that challenges you, that pushes you to grow. The prayer doesn’t change the world around you; it changes how you move through it. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe the real power of Preghiera di San Francesco Onnipotente isn’t in the words themselves, but in what they awaken in you—the courage to be soft in a hard world, to choose peace over pride, to love without conditions. That’s the gift it gave me, quietly, persistently, one whispered line at a time.