CAP: Peace Prayers

Peace Prayers & Poems

We honor and are grateful for the opportunity to see what brings together all world religions and all people who pray for peace.

Except as noted, these prayers was forwarded to us from <bluespin@earthlink.net>. We don't know who compiled the original list.

Know another peace prayer? Please feel free to email it to us!

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The Prayer of Saint 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

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,
It is in dying ... that we are born to eternal life

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Baha'i Prayer for Peace

Be generous in prosperity,
and thankful in adversity.

Be fair in judgement,
and guarded in thy speech,

Be a lamp unto those who walk
in darkness, and a home
to the stranger.

Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light
unto the feet of the erring

Be a breath of life to the body of
humankind, a dew to the soil of
the human heart,
and a fruit upon the tree of humility.

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Buddhist Prayer for Peace

May all beings everywhere plagued
with sufferings of body and mind
quickly be freed from their illnesses.

May those frightened cease to be afraid,
and may those bound be free.

May the powerless find power,
and may people think of befriending
one another.

May those who find themselves in trackless,
fearful wilderness---
the children, the age, the unprotected--
be guarded by beneficial celestials,
and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood

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Hindu Prayer for Peace

Oh God, lead us from the unreal to the Real.
Oh God, lead us from darkness to light.
Oh God, lead us from death to immortality.
Shanti, Shanti, Shanti unto all.

Oh Lord God almighty, may there be peace in celestial regions.
May there be peace on Earth.
May the waters be appeasing.
May herbs be wholesome, and
may trees and plants bring peace to all.
May all beneficient beings bring peace to us.
May thy Vedic Law propagate peace all
through the world.

May all things be a source of peace to us.
And may thy peace itself, bestow peace on all
and may that peace come to me also.

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Muslim Prayer for Peace

In the name of Allah,
the beneficent, the merciful.

Praise be to the Lord of the
Universe who has created us and
made us into tribes and nations
That we may know each other, not that
we may despise each other.

If the enemy incline towards peace, do
thou also incline towards peace, and
trust God, for the Lord is the one that
heareth and knoweth all things.

And the servants of God,
Most gracious are those who walk on
the Earth in humility, and when we
address them, we say "PEACE."

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Native American Prayer for Peace

Almighty God, the Great
Thumb we cannot evade to
tie any knot;
the Roaring Thunder that splits mighty trees:
the all-seeing Lord up on high who sees
even the footprints of an antelope on
a rock mass here on Earth.

You are the one who does
not hesitate to respond to our call.
You are the cornerstone of peace.

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Another Native American Prayer for Peace

Oh Great Spirit of our
Ancestors, I raise
my pipe to you.

To your messengers the four winds, and
to Mother Earth who provides
for your children.

Give us the wisdom to teach our children
to love, to respect, and to be kind
to each other so that they may grow
with peace of mind

Let us learn to share all good things that
you provide for us on this Earth.

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Shinto Prayer for Peace

Although the people living
across the ocean
surrounding us, I believe
are all our brothers and sisters,
why are there constant troubles in
this world?

Why do winds and waves rise in the
oceans surrounding us?
I only earnestly wish that the wind will
soon puff away all the clouds which are
hanging over the tops of mountains.

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Zoroastrian Prayer for Peace

We pray to God to eradicate all the
misery in the world:
that understanding triumph
over ignorance,
that generosity triumph over indifference,
that trust triumph over contempt, and
that truth triumph over falsehood.

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Sikh Prayer for Peace

God adjudges us according
to our deeds,
not the coat that we wear:
that Truth is above everything,
but higher still is truthful living.

Know that we attaineth God when we loveth,
and only victory
endures in consequences of which no
one is defeated.

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Christian Prayer for Peace

Blessed are the PEACEMAKERS,
for they shall be known as
the Children of God.

But I say to you that hear, love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you
pray for those who abuse you.

To those that strike you on the cheek,
offer the other one also,
and from those who take away your cloak,
do not withhold your coat as well.

Give to everyone who begs from you,
and of those who take away your goods,
do not ask for them again.

And as you wish that others would do to you,
do so to them.

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May I be free from danger
May I be filled with loving kindness
May I be well and happy
May I free of suffering
May I be at peace

May my loved ones be free from danger
May my loved ones be filled with loving kindness
May my loved ones be well and happy
May my loved ones be free of suffering
May my loved ones be at peace

May my enemies be free from danger
May my enemies be filled with loving kindness
May my enemies be well and happy
May my enemies be free of suffering
May my enemies be at peace

May all beings be free from danger
May all beings be filled with loving kindness
May all beings be well and happy
May all beings be free of suffering
May all beings be at peace

And may the world be restored to wholeness.

Thanks to Larry Robinson for forwarding this prayer.

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I, May I Rest in Peace

I, may I rest in peace - I, who am still living, say,
May I have peace in the rest of my life.
I want peace right now while I'm still alive.
I don't want to wait like that pious man who wished for one leg
of the golden chair of Paradise, I want a four-legged chair
right here, a plain wooden chair. I want the rest of my peace now.

I have lived out my life in wars of every kind: battles without
and within, close combat, face-to-face, the faces always
my own, my lover-face, my enemy face.
Wars with the old weapons - sticks and stones, blunt axe, words,
dull ripping knife, love and hate,
and wars with newfangled weapons - machine gun, missile,
words, land mines exploding, love and hate.

I don't want to fulfill my parents' prophecy that life is war.
I want peace with all my body and all my soul.
Rest me in peace.

Yehuda Amichai (trans)
Thanks to Larry Robinson for forwarding this poem.

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Candles in Babylon

Through the midnight streets of Babylon
between the steel towers of their arsenals,
between the torture castles with no windows,
we race by barefoot, holding tight
our candles, trying to shield
the shivering flames, crying
"Sleepers Awake!"
hoping
the rhyme's promise was true,
that we may return
from this place of exile
home to a calm dawn and
the work we had just begun.

Denise Levertov
Thanks to Larry Robinson for forwarding this poem.

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Song

There are those who are trying to set fire to the world,
we are in danger,
there is time only to work slowly,
there is no time not to love.

Deena Metzger
Thanks to Larry Robinson for forwarding this poem.

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Jainist Prayer for peace

Peace and Universal Love is the essence
of the Gospel preached by all
Enlightened Ones.
The Lord has preached that equanimity
is the dharma

Forgive do I creatures all,
and let all creatures forgive me.
Unto all have I amity, and unto none enmity.

Know that violence is the root cause of
all miseries in the world.
Violence, in fact, is the knot of bondage.
"Do not injure any living being."
This is the eternal, perrenial, and unalterable
way of spiritual life.

A weapon, howsoever powerful it may be,
can always be superseded by a superior one;
but no weapon can, however,

* Click here for our main Peace page.

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