Urban prayer legends

I had an inquiry recently from a nice lady named Edwina looking for the text of “A 17th-century Nun’s Prayer”. It’s easy enough to find on the internet (text below). It’s a charming prayer but clearly modern in style and not from the 17th century, in spite of a few faux-antique touches. The Nun’s Prayer, then, must join some other pieces of 20th-century wisdom falsely assigned to earlier times. The two most famous cases, still often circulating under their false attributions, are the Peace Prayer of St Francis and Desiderata.

The prayer attributed to St Francis of Assisi (“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace”) can only be traced back to a little before World War I. The earliest known appearance is as an anonymous text in French on the back of a holy card of St Francis, dating from around 1912–1914. It seems that it was an English version in 1936 which first upgraded the association with St Francis’ picture to an explicit attribution of the text to him. The prayer became famous when Sen. Thomas Connally read it before the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. Francis would no doubt have liked it, but Franciscan scholars universally reject it as an authentic work of his.[1]

Desiderata (“Go placidly amid the noise and haste”) was very popular in the ’60s and ’70s, usually circulating, as it often still does, in a form that says it was “Found in Old St. Paul's Church, Baltimore, A.D. 1692”. It is, in fact, a poem written by Max Ehrmann (1872–1945), an Indiana lawyer, who copyrighted it in 1927. It was first published by his widow in a collection of his poems in 1948. The confusion arose because at the end of the 1950s the rector of St Paul’s Church in Baltimore, which was founded in 1692, circulated a copy of the poem on his church letterhead, and the information about the church became mistakenly attached to the poem. The true story, well-documented, is here and elsewhere.

Desiderata attracted a cynical parody Deteriorata from National Lampoon in 1972. Years later Mary Schmich riffed cleverly on the theme in an article “Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young”, now generally known as “Wear sunscreen”, in the Chicago Tribune (1/6/1997). This, too, soon attracted its own urban legend, that it was a commencement address by Kurt Vonnegut at MIT.

Unfortunately, these sorts of legends are tenacious and seem beyond correction.

A Nun's Prayer (not from the 17th century)

Lord, Thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older and will some day be old. Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion. Release me from craving to straighten out everybody’s affairs. Make me thoughtful but not moody; helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity not to use it at all, but thou knowest Lord that I want a few friends at the end. Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details, give me wings to get to the point. Seal my lips on my aches and pains. They are increasing and love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by. I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the tales of others’ pains, but help me to endure them with patience. I dare not ask for improved memory but for a growing humility and a lessening cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken. Keep me reasonably sweet, I do not want to be a saint — some of them are hard to live with — but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil. Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places and talents in unexpected people. And, give me, O Lord, the grace to tell them so. Amen.

[1] J. Poulenc, “L’inspiration moderne de la prière Seigneur, faite de moi un instrument de vôtre paix”, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 68 (1975): 450–453; Damien Vorreux, Appendix: “Note sur la prière per la paix attribuée à S. François”, in François d’Assise, Écrits, ed. Théophile Desbonnets et al. (Sources chrétiennes 285), Paris: Cerf, 1997.