Every Christmas season since the tragic events of 2001, I have been praying a Novena for Peace and most years I’ve invited others to join me in the belief that a personal and communal commitment to peace will bring it about. While I have not yet seen peace break out throughout the world, I have seen it grow in and around me in significant ways.
And so for the 2013 Christmas season I again commit myself to saying a Novena for Peace and I ask you to join me. Together we can become the peace we desire in the world by focusing our thoughts, our energy, and our actions on peace.
For the next nine days (or any nine consecutive days of your choosing), I ask you to meditate with me, pray with me, and choose with me the ways we can nurture and grow peace in our hearts and then share that peace to everyone we encounter.
Over the years I’ve learned that prayer, like thought, is energy and has awesome creative power. The more energy/prayer/thought we devote to feeling peace, being at peace, fostering peace around us, and sharing our peace with others the more peace will grow in our hearts and in our world. Rather than engaging in, or surrendering to, the issues that divide us let us focus on what we want to create – a life filled with love, joy, compassion, and hope. A life of peace.
The Habit of Peace
Experts tell us that repeating an action over seven days helps cement it as a habit. We have nine days in this holy season to meditate on peace, think peaceful thoughts, and pray to recognize how we instigate or diminish peace as we observe ourselves acting (or not) in intentional, peaceful ways. In this way, we each can make peace a habit.
Every year, I have used the Prayer of St. Francis as the introductory prayer to focus the meditation. This year, I will keep the focus on that prayer, which is so rich in spiritual truths, by using its parts for the daily reflection. I am not alone in cherishing that prayer. It has been set to music in countless ways and this year I will share nine versions to listen to as part of the meditative experience. As you listen, let the music wash over you so that the words settle deeply into your soul.
The Novena itself if a simple ritual. Begin with an opening prayer to center yourself, read the short reflection posted each morning to guide your thoughts, sit in silent reflection as you answer one or more of the questions below, and end with a closing prayer of gratitude. It can take as little as five minutes or as long as a half hour or more. It’s the nine days of daily practice reflecting on your life that matters.
Opening prayer: Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
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.
Oh, 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.
Reflection Questions:
In what ways am I (or can I be) an instrument of peace today?
What robs me of my peace today? Did I do or say anything to rob someone else of their peace today?
Who needs my blessing and forgiveness today? Whose blessing and forgiveness do I need today? What must I surrender or embrace to allow that?
Closing prayers:
Master of the Universe, you are the Author of all life, all love, all peace and for that I give thanks. In gratitude for all I’ve been given and with faith, hope and your immense Love within me, I seek to join my heart and voice with all who desire to become instruments of peace.
I seek the courage and strength to act with unconditional love and forgiveness. Help me to walk each day conscious of our Oneness and your Presence in me and in all others so that I might fearlessly live out your command to love my neighbor as myself.
Tomorrow we begin.
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