The Prayer of Saint Francis: A Message of Peace for the World Today [Paperback]

Leonardo Boff (Author), Phillip Berryman (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

This famous prayer, traditionally attributed to Saint Francis, has traveled the world, winning hearts and inspiring minds with its simple and persuasive witness to the power of unconditional love.

Product Details

• Paperback: 118 pages
• Publisher: Orbis Books (February 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570753563
• ISBN-13: 978-1570753565
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,021,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A PRAYER FOR TODAY, August 2, 2003

By 

Tony Theil (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Prayer of Saint Francis: A Message of Peace for the World Today (Paperback)

Boff's The Prayer of St Francis is truly, as its subtitle suggests, A Message of Peace for the World Today. He enthusiastically sounds the message, line by line, as a call to action. Each sentence bursts with energy and presents a challenge for us to live not only for ourselves but in communion, in solidarity with one another. Boff has reformulated Franciscan ideals into a twenty-first century context. He challenges world order, global economics, consumerism, and wasteful productivity. If I didn't know who wrote this book, I would suspect a consortum that would include Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Peter Mathiessen, Thomas Merton, Mother Teresa, and Ralph Nader.

Two additional lines appear in this Prayer for Peace: "where there is discord, union" and "where there is error, truth". They do not appear in the traditional prayer, but belong there along with Boff's good counsel. This ecumenical message should be read by every political and religious leader and even those of us who lack the motivation to make a difference in our world. Boff's commentary enlightens and inspires us to be instruments of peace.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful from start to finish, August 23, 2001

By 

Haydn S Adams (Corte Madera, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Prayer of Saint Francis: A Message of Peace for the World Today (Paperback)

The author holds the payer in the most radient light possible. This message, while written long ago, still holds true today. And the author gives us that message in today's terms. Very well written, have read it twice.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, but on the run, December 29, 2003

By 

Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Prayer of Saint Francis: A Message of Peace for the World Today (Paperback)

Boff's little meditation on peace, inspired by the so-called Francis prayer, is exquisite in places. But it's also rather breathless, running from one line to the next in the prayer without taking time to chew well on any of them. The opening chapters, to Boff's credit, try to explore the meaning and causes of peace a bit more thoroughly, but the rest of the book travels way too quickly. To give Boff his due, the book is intended as a devotional rather than a theological treatise, so one expects a certain amount of sketchiness. But still, the book raises too many questions that cry out for discussion. One quick example: on pp. 25-29, Boff writes about Girard on mimetic violence, intending this as one explanation for why peace is so tenuous. But the transition in his account from literal scapegoating to legal scapegoating is so abrupt that no one who hasn't read Girard could possibly follow it.

Having said this, it's also the case that Boff's book shows real insight in places. His claim that peace begins with a re-connection with God is both Franciscan and on target, and his reformulation of peace as an "order-action" is also a creative and fascinating contribution. He briefly mentions the "diabolic"/"symbolic" distinction he's made in other works, and it's helpful here as well (although, again, a reader unfamiliar with it may not quite follow what Boff's up to).