Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi as a Labor Day Meditation

Today is Labor Day in this part of the world, and I wanted to share this song from a prayer by St. Francis of Assisi as a meditation on the attitudes that can make labor beautiful. Whether you work in an office, a factory, or at home, you can choose to be an instrument of peace, and to bring love, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy to those you live and work with.

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.