Prayers
for the Hour of Death.
"Father! In your hands I place my spirit!" Luke 23:46
O merciful Jesus, stretched on the cross, be mindful of the hour of oue death. O most merciful Heart of Jesus, opened with a lance, shelter me at the last moment of my life. O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of unfathomable mercy for me at the hour of my death, O dying Jesus, Hostage of mercy, avert the Divine wrath at the hour of my death. Faustina Kowalska, The Diary, 813.
It was a joy to me, Lord, in the midst of my struggles, to feel that in
growing to my own fulfillment I was increasing your hold on me; it was a joy to
me, beneath the inward burgeoning of life and amidst the unfolding of event
that favored me, to surrender
myself to your providence. And now that I have discovered the joy of
turning every increase into a way of making--or allowing--your presence to grow
within me, I beg of you: bring me to a serene acceptance of that final phase of
communion with you in which I shall attain to possession of you by
diminishing within you.
Now that I have learnt to see you as he who is 'more me than
myself', grant that when my hour has come I may recognize you under appearances
of every alien or hostile power that seems bent on destroying or dispossessing
me. When the erosions of age begin to leave their mark on my body, and
still more on my mind, when the ills that must diminish my life or put an end
to it strike me down from without or grow up from within me; when I reach the
painful moment at which I suddenly realize that I am a sick man or that I am
growing old; above all at that final moment when I feel I am losing hold
on myself and becoming wholly passive in the hands of those great unknown
forces which first formed me: at all these somber moments grant me, Lord,
to understand that it is you (provided my faith is strong enough) who are
painfully separating the fibers of my being so as to
penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and draw me into yourself.
The more deeply and incurably my ills become engrained in my
flesh, the more it may be you yourself that I am harboring as a loving, active
principle of purification and of liberation from possessiveness. The more the
future lies ahead of me like a dark
tunnel or a dizzy abyss, the more confident I can be-- if I go forward boldly,
relying on your word--of being lost, of being engulfed, in you, Lord, of being
absorbed into your Body.
Lord, Christ, you who are divine energy and living,
irresistible might: since of the two of us it is you who are infinitely the
stronger, it is you who must set me ablaze and transmute me into fire that we
may be wedded together and made one. Grant me, then, something even more
precious than that grace for which all your faithful followers pray: to receive
communion as I die
is not sufficient; teach me to make a communion of death itself. Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe,
"Pensees # 30", PP. 103-104. Submitted to
Merton-L Discussion Group by Terry Miller.
God, full of mercy, Who dwells above, provide a sure rest on the wings of the Divine Presence, amongst the holy, pure and glorious who shine like the sky, to the soul of (Hebrew name of deceased) daughter of (Hebrew name of her father) for the sake of charity which was given to the memory of her soul. Therefore, the Merciful One will protect her forever in the hiding of his wings, and will tie her soul with the rope of life. The Everlasting is her heritage, and she shall rest peacefully at her lying place, and let us say: Amen. El Malei Rachamim, traditional Jewish prayer at the time of burial or memorial service.
Exalted and sanctified be His great name, in the world which He created according to His will! May He establish His kingdom and may His salvation blossom and His anointed be near during your lifetime and during your days and during the lifetimes of all the House of Israel, speedily and very soon! And say, Amen. Mourner’s Kaddish, traditional Jewish prayer at the funeral or memorial service.
Last updated: 2021/01/06