Prayer Before the Icon Crucifix of San Damiano
(1206)

This is the prayer that Francis is said to have prayed on that eventful day when God first spoke to him. He was kneeling in the ruined church of San Damiano wanting desperately to hear a word from God when God said in such a way that Francis could understand: “Go and rebuild my Church.” Francis responded in his usual, literal way: by gathering bricks in town and reconstructing that very church. This prayer later became Francis’s prayer for himself, as well as the spirit of the Franciscan movement. It is textual tradition for it to be laid out as verse, since Francis is widely recognized as one of the first authors of poetry in the Italian vernacular.4

The crucifix before which Francis prayed is actually an icon; it is the image of the crucifix painted onto a twelve-centimeters-thick block of wood in the shape of a cross. It hangs in the Basilica of Santa Clara in Assisi to this day.

 

 

Most High,

Most glorious God,

Enlighten the darkness of my heart.

Grant me a right and true faith,

A certain hope, and

A perfect charity, feeling, and understanding

Of You,

So that I may be able to accomplish Your holy and just commands.

Amen.

4 See for instance, Italian Poetry: A Selection from St. Francis of Assisi to Salvatore Quasimodo: In Italian with English Translation, selected and translated by Luciano Rebay (New York: Dover, 1969), 7.