Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

- Saint Francis of Assisi

Consecration of humanity, especially of Russia and Ukraine, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

O Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, we, in this hour of tribulation, turn to you. You are our Mother, you love us and you know us, nothing that concerns us is hidden from you. Mother of mercy, many times we have experienced your provident tenderness, your presence that restores peace to us, because you always lead us to Jesus, Prince of Peace.

We have lost the path of peace. We have forgotten the lesson of the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of millions of fallen in world wars. We have neglected the commitments assumed as a Community of Nations and we are betraying the dreams of peace of the peoples and the hopes of young people.

We have become sick with greed, we have locked ourselves into nationalist interests, we have allowed ourselves to be hardened by indifference and paralyzed by selfishness. We have preferred to ignore God, live with our falsehoods, feed aggressiveness, suppress lives and accumulate weapons, forgetting that we are custodians of our neighbor and our common home.

We have destroyed the garden of the earth with war, we have wounded the heart of our Father, who loves us brothers and sisters, with sin. We have become indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves. And with shame we say: forgive us, Lord.

In the misery of sin, in our tiredness and frailty, in the mystery of the iniquity of evil and war, you, Holy Mother, remind us that God does not abandon us, but continues to look at us with love, eager to forgive us and lift us up. again. It is He who has given you to us and has placed in your Immaculate Heart a refuge for the Church and for humanity. By his divine goodness you are with us, and even in the most adverse vicissitudes of history you lead us with tenderness.

That is why we turn to you, we knock at the door of your Heart, we, your dear children who never tire of visiting and inviting conversion.

In this dark hour, come to our aid and comfort us. She repeats to each one of us: “Am I not here, who am your Mother?”. You know how to untie the tangles of our hearts and the knots of our time. We put our trust in you. We are sure that you, especially in these moments of trial, do not despise our pleas and come to our aid.

So you did in Cana of Galilee, when you hastened the hour of Jesus’ intervention and introduced his first sign in the world. When the party had turned into sadness, you told him: «They have no wine» (Jn 2,3).

Repeat it again to God, oh Mother, because today we have finished the wine of hope, joy has vanished, fraternity has been watered down. We have lost humanity, we have spoiled peace. We have become capable of all kinds of violence and destruction. We urgently need your maternal help.

Accept, oh Mother, our plea.

You, star of the sea, do not let us shipwreck in the storm of war.

You, ark of the new covenant, inspire projects and paths of reconciliation.

You, “land of Heaven”, bring God’s harmony back to the world.

Extinguish hatred, appease revenge, teach us to forgive.

Deliver us from war, preserve the world from the nuclear threat.

Queen of the Rosary, awaken in us the need to pray and love.

Queen of the human family, show the peoples the path of brotherhood.

Queen of peace, obtain peace for the world.

May your cry, oh Mother, move our hardened hearts. May the tears you have shed for us make this valley bloom that our hatred has dried up. And while the noise of the weapons is not silenced, may your prayer dispose us to peace.

May your maternal hands caress those who suffer and flee under the weight of the bombs. May your maternal embrace comfort those who are forced to leave their homes and their country. May your afflicted Heart move us to compassion, impel us to open doors and take charge of wounded and discarded humanity.

Holy Mother of God, while you were at the foot of the cross, Jesus, seeing the disciple next to you, said to you: “Here is your son” (Jn 19:26), and thus he entrusted us to you. Then he said to the disciple, to each one of us: “Behold your mother” (v. 27).

Mother, we want to welcome you now in our life and in our history. In this hour humanity, exhausted and overwhelmed, is with you at the foot of the cross. And he needs to entrust himself to you, consecrate himself to Christ through you.

The Ukrainian people and the Russian people, who venerate you with love, turn to you, while your Heart beats for them and for all the peoples decimated by war, hunger, injustice and misery.

For this reason, Mother of God and ours, we solemnly entrust and consecrate to your Immaculate Heart our people, the Church and all of humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine.

Welcome this act of ours that we perform with trust and love, make the war cease, provide the world with peace. The “yes” that flowed from your Heart opened the doors of history to the Prince of Peace; we trust that, through your Heart, peace will come.

To you, then, we consecrate the future of the entire human family, the needs and aspirations of peoples, the anxieties and hopes of the world.

May divine Mercy spill over the earth through you, and the sweet heartbeat of peace once again mark our days. Woman of yes, on whom the Holy Spirit descended, brings us back the harmony of God.

You who are “living source of hope”, dissipate the dryness of our hearts. You who have woven the humanity of Jesus, make us builders of communion. You who have walked our paths, guide us along paths of peace.

Amen.

Forgive us for war, O Lord.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners!
Lord Jesus, born in the shadows of bombs falling on Kyiv, have mercy on us!
Lord Jesus, who died in a mother’s arms in a bunker in Kharkiv, have mercy on us!
Lord Jesus, a 20-year-old sent to the frontlines, have mercy on us!
Lord Jesus, who still behold armed hands in the shadow of your Cross, have mercy on us!

Forgive us, O Lord.

Forgive us, if we are not satisfied with the nails with which we crucified Your hands, as we continue to slate our thirst with the blood of those mauled by weapons.
Forgive us, if these hands which You created to tend have been transformed into instruments of death.
Forgive us, O Lord, if we continue to kill our brother;

Forgive us, if we continue like Cain to pick up the stones of our fields to kill Abel. 
Forgive us, if we continue to justify our cruelty with our labors, if we legitimize the brutality of our actions with our pain.
Forgive us for war, O Lord. Forgive us for war, O Lord.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, we implore You! Hold fast the hand of Cain!
Illumine our consciences;
May our will not be done;
Abandon us not to our own actions!

Stop us, O Lord, stop us!
And when you have held back the hand of Cain, care also for him. He is our brother.
O Lord, put a halt to the violence!
Stop us, O Lord!
Amen.

O Lord, hear the prayers of those who trust in you, especially the lowly, those sorely tried, and those who suffer and flee before the roar of weapons. 

Restore peace to our hearts; once again, grant your peace to our days. 

Amén

- Pope Francis

Lord God of peace, hear our prayer!

Open our eyes and our hearts, and give us the courage to say: “Never again war!”; “With war everything is lost”. Instill in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace.

Keep alive within us the flame of hope, so that with patience and perseverance we may opt for dialogue and reconciliation. In this way may peace triumph at last.

Amen.

- Pope Francis

Lord God of peace, hear our prayer! We have tried so many times and over so many years to resolve our conflicts by our own powers and by the force of our arms.

How many moments of hostility and darkness have we experienced; how much blood has been shed; how many lives have been shattered; how many hopes have been buried… But our efforts have been in vain.

Now, Lord, come to our aid! Grant us peace, teach us peace; guide our steps in the way of peace. Open our eyes and our hearts, and give us the courage to say: “Never again war!”; “With war everything is lost”. Instil in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace.

Lord, God of Abraham, God of the Prophets, God of Love, you created us and you call us to live as brothers and sisters. Give us the strength daily to be instruments of peace; enable us to see everyone who crosses our path as our brother or sister.

Make us sensitive to the plea of our citizens who entreat us to turn our weapons of war into implements of peace, our trepidation into confident trust, and our quarreling into forgiveness.

Keep alive within us the flame of hope, so that with patience and perseverance we may opt for dialogue and reconciliation.

In this way may peace triumph at last, and may the words “division”, “hatred” and “war” be banished from the heart of every man and woman.

Lord, defuse the violence of our tongues and our hands.

Renew our hearts and minds, so that the word which always brings us together will be “brother”, and our way of life will always be that of: Shalom, Peace, Salaam! Amen.