www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Prayer For those who have lost a child

Brothers and Sisters:

My wife and I lost a child by miscarriage many years ago. As parents, we believe that there is no greater hurt that we suffer together than the loss of a child. Some lose a child before the birth and all the dreams and hopes and expectations that the two talk about are suddenly dashed like a china plate dropped on the floor. Some have the joy of birth and a shorter or greater time to hold and love the child but then lose it for any number of reasons.

We bought ourselves a little angel with the year on it and hang it on our Christmas tree each year to remind us that God has kept our little angel in His Home for the past year. It has made me more sensitive to those I serve who are walking a similar path and who are heartbroken.

Other parents lose a child to tragic accidents that happen suddenly and without warning because a child is too young to cope with some event or situation.

Some lose a child later who has gone off to college or to the armed services.

The parents in this forum who have experienced what I am describing know the terrible hole that is left in one's heart by the loss of a child.

So I offer this prayer for all of us:

Lord Jesus, You know the pain of a broken heart. Your Own Heart was broken by a lance for us all. Your own sorrow at Your Death was the sorrow of separation from Your Father and Ours because You accepted sin on our behalf. Help those of us who have suffered the loss of a child that You entrusted to us to see beyond our grief to the comfort that You alone can give. When the pain seems too great, let us simply put out our hands to reach for Your Hands and hold us in Your Warm Embrace. When we feel that we cannot pray, help us simply to sit quietly in Your Presence so that Your Presence Itself may heal us. Lift us from a grief that cannot be healed and help us to wear the scar of our loss with the sure hope that You wish it to be for our salvation, even when we cannot understand the reason why. Through the prayers of the Mother of God and of all the saints, O Lord Our Savior, hear and answer us who grieve. AMEN.

There is a secular song with a line that I like to parapharse that fits here: "Lord, I have a hole in my heart that can only be filled by You."

In Christ,

BOB

Dear Bob, +May HE bless you always! Thank you for sharing that beautiful post! My grandmother (May she rest among the Saints!) had 10 children and before she reposed at age 85 had buried SEVEN of the ten! I never gave it much thought (not because I'm insensitive) but because my grandmother handled it with such great faith. One day I came home for the funeral of my Aunt Cecilia (she was my grandmother's first born and the seventh and last one to repose before my grandmother). I sat with my grandmother in the livingroom after the wake and looking over at her and all those lines in her beautiful face caused by both sadness and joy, I said, "Gramma how do you DO it?" And she said, "Why whatever do you mean?" I said, "How do you bury all these loved ones, grandpa, and all the children?" Then she said something I shall never forget! "Why Gregory, none of them were mine to begin with, they all belonged to HIM first---He loved them first...and He died for them all...they were all just 'on loan' to me. Besides, I'll see them again very soon." I knew that day that I had witnessed GREAT FAITH...and in my very own family! May God bless all of you who have lost a child, or a husband, or a wife, or a parent, or a dear friend...or anyone dear! Now that I'm much older and have buried my parents and all my family, I'm beginning to understand my grandmother better and thankfully her faith and hope have rubbed off well!

In His Holy Name,
+Father Archimandrite Gregory

Amen!

Thank you for sharing that story of faith with us, Fr. Gregory. May the Lord bless us with a faith like your grandmother's. Even a mustard seed would do.

Theophan,

Can I point you to a web addy?

It's www.innocents.com [innocents.com]

- which is the Church of the Holy Innocents in the fashiondistrict of New York. Scroll down and click on the Shrine Book of Life.

It's a real book in a real church, and people stop in there every day to pray. In the book are inscribed the names (or other designations - my two are in as "two little ones known only to God") of babies who didn't live ot be born. Registering your child doesn't cost anything, nobody will try to sell you anything, and you don't even have to be Catholic. A couple weeks after you register, you'll get a nice certificate in the mail acknowledging it. Once a month there is a Mass in honor of all the babies. There's something tremendously healing in knowing that your little one will never be forgotten.

(Glad I grabbed a fresh box of Kleenex yesterday)

Sharon

Fr. Gregory:

Your grandmother summed up beautifully what I was thinking when I used the word "entrusted" in my prayer. Children are truly "loaned" to us or "entrusted" to us. We have the sacred duty to bring them up in the Faith, first of all, giving them roots. Then we must let them go as the Lord calls each one to the vocation He has in mind for the salvation of that one. We hurt even when they leave home and are successful, but live far away and we only have contact on occasion. But I also believe that a human heart is meant to be easily bruised so that the Lord can come back again and again to heal and be an active part of our lives. All things are given to us--the good, the bad, the happy, the sad, and the glad--to turn us back to Him for everything and in all things.

Lord, thanks for making us needy so that we have to turn back to You, time and again, to live. For You are Life Itself and we ascribe glory to You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. AMEN.

In Christ,

BOB

P.S.: Maybe this is why I cannot understand why people abuse children and we have so many horror stories in the news. How can a human being harm a child?

Thank you, Bob.

As many on this forum know, my wife and I lost our last child to stillbirth about a year and a half ago. My wife is now pregnant again and she has to take a daily shot of Lovenox. It's very difficult going through the pain and expense (my "health care" plan doesn't cover home injectables) of treatment when the outcome is so uncertain.

Please remember us and our new unborn child in your prayers.

Ciz,

I will remember you and yours in my prayers.

Last November, my wife and I lost our second son, David (age 21) in an automobile accident in Malibu, California, where he was a student at Pepperdine University. I would very much appreciate your prayers for his soul, and for his mother and me, as well.

I had just the day before obtained a Ukrainian icon of Our Lady of Sorrows at Miles Jesu's Path to Rome conference in Vienna...

Woody

Woody,

I'm very sorry to hear that. Your son and your family are in our prayers.

Ciz, Woody, and all other grieving parents:

May the Lord help you to carry the cross of heartbreak that He Himself carried. May you know that your broken heart is something precious to Him and that He yearns to heal it.

Ciz: May your wife have her pain lessened and may you both rejoice in the birth of a healthy child when her time is over.

Woody: I have had the opportunity to sit quietly with parents in your situation. That is all I can offer. I don't know what to say because the pain is so intense, even for those with great faith. Best to say nothing except that I sit with you over the miles. May the Lord hold you in His Embrace.

In Christ,
BOB