The Prayer of St Francis and Commentary
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where there is despair, hope;

Despair and die. Despair is an acute case of doubt. Whereas doubt will confuse you on life's road, slowing you down, sending you in wrong directions; despair cuts away your very legs, sucking out all of your life force. Despair is Sisyphus pushing the boulder, his sin, up the immense mountain and watching it roll back down, again and again and again. Hope is the knowing that all conditions will pass. All pain will end. Thomas a Kempis encouraged the monks of the Middle Ages to bear with whatever hardship that was sent their way, because what did a short time of pain compare to the bliss of Heaven that awaited them. This is not a hope that is, Gee, I hope this happens. This is the hope that comes from knowing of faith that has no doubt. Despair is the thought, the feeling, that this pain will never end. Tibetan monks have a practice that can get them through torture by focusing the mind on the moment of pain, on just one increment of pain. Despair is the mind remembering all the past increments of pain and projecting all those increments into the future. Instead of one increment of pain that is bearable, you are dealing with massive pain that will seem to be endless.

where there is darkness light.

From despair darkness follows. No ray of hope to the end of suffering can penetrate this gloom. This is the general condition of humanity, hopeless suffering, of war after war, disease after disease, failure after failure, loss after loss and finally death after death. This is what the Buddha saw when he was prince Siddartha, that no earthly condition can alleviate mans suffering for all are doomed to experience the turning of the wheel of matter. So only by becoming enlightened, to be filled with light--a light beyond the duality of the world, the light of the Truth of ones Being, ones Nature--then does darkness, suffering end.

and where there is sadness, joy.

Sad spelled backwards is das. Das is a Sanskrit word meaning servant. When you are sad you are not serving. To get out of malaise is to find someone to help. The book Love is Letting Go of Fear, by Gerald Jampolsky, abounds in anecdotes of people overcoming terminal diseases by getting out of their poor me-ness and reaching out to help others who suffered. Sadness is the result of sinking into the shadows of believing you are just a pathetic body, unloved in an unforgiving world with the belief that you have nothing to give. Look at the faces of passers-by on a city street. So many mouths turned down by habitual frowns. You do not have to be a Mother Theresa to bring joy to the suffering. A smile is an amazing gift. Smile as you walk down one of those streets and bless all you pass and you will give a flower to every heart. Leela is the word the Hindus give to the world describing life as God's Play or Game. God is seen as a Child creating for just the sake of creating. Jesus asked us to be as little children. What does that mean? To have joy. Look into the eyes of a young child as she picks up a sand dollar on the beach or finds a shiny pebble. Her eyes will sparkle with the creation of stars. Joy is the participation in this great dance of life, letting your little self go into this Dervish dance.

O Divine Master,

The first half of the prayer is Francis telling us what qualities of character we need to foster. This latter part informs us of what right actions we need to take to come back to the Awareness of God.
Immediately, he calls upon the Master. Who is the Master? The Christ. The Divine Child created exactly like God, perfectly unaffected by matter, yet who is found in all forms. And for Francis he saw that Jesus and Christ were the same. Francis renounced intellectualism as a way to God, despite the great minds in his order of monks. His path was the path of simplicity, the path of love, of devotion. He so loved his teacher that he received the stigmata. His mind became completely absorbed in Jesus, and since Jesus was completely one with Christ and Christ in God, so Francis through Jesus realized his Divine Nature. This is the importance of having an enlightened teacher to focus on, to call upon, whether in body or without.

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