Did St Francis write the Serenity Prayer?
Question: I love the prayer that goes “Lord, grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to deal with the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I always thought it was by St Francis of Assisi, but a friend said it is a Protestant prayer. Who’s right?
Answer: The beautiful “Serenity Prayer” is very much in the spirit of St Francis, but your friend is right — sort of.
It was written by the US Protestant theologian Rev Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), who is pictured below. It first appeared in 1937 in this formulation: “Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.”
The prayer, in the form wrongly attributed to St Francis, became popular after Alcoholics Anonymous adopted it in its programme in the 1940s.
Rev Niebuhr, who was open towards Catholics, was a great influence on the Rev Martin Luther King Jr. Surely St Francis would approve.
This question was asked and answered in the June 2022 issue of The Southern Cross magazine
Reinhold Niebuhr
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