Prayers for the Dying and the Dead
These are prayers for the bedside and for afterwards: commending someone into God's hands as they die, praying for the dead, and asking for a peaceful death for yourself.
Many can be read aloud by a family member. If you are sitting with someone now and do not know what to say, choose the shortest one and repeat it. That is enough.
16 prayers
- A Prayer for a Grieving Heart
A contemporary pastoral prayer that follows the biblical pattern of lament, closing with the ancient Requiem aeternam used across the…
- A Prayer for a Peaceful Death
Praying for a holy and peaceful death — the grace of the ars moriendi tradition of the late Middle Ages — is one of the oldest requests in…
- Blessing of a Grave
A blessing for a grave or burial place, prayed at the committal of the dead.
- Consecration to St. Michael the Archangel
An act of dedication to St. Michael, drawn from the traditional consecration prayer that circulates with the Chaplet of St. Michael and in…
- Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (Prayer for a Happy Death)
This threefold aspiration to the Holy Family is one of the best known short prayers in Catholic devotion, indulgenced by Pope Pius VII in…
- Novena for the Faithful Departed
Praying for the dead is one of the oldest documented Christian practices, attested in the catacombs and in the liturgies of both East and…
- Prayer for All Souls
The Requiem aeternam with the collect Fidelium Deus, prayed on All Souls' Day, at funerals, and at graves in November. It is the Church's…
- Prayer for the Departed (Memory Eternal)
The central prayer of the Orthodox Trisagion service for the dead and of the Panikhida, sung at funerals, memorial days, and on the…
- Prayer for the Souls in Purgatory
Prayer for the dead is one of the oldest Christian practices, attested in the catacombs and defended in 2 Maccabees 12:46 — 'it is a holy…
- Prayer of Abandonment to God's Will (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton)
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774–1821), a widowed mother of five who became the first native-born American saint and founded the Sisters of…
- Prayer of Trust (Richard Baxter)
Richard Baxter, the Puritan pastor of Kidderminster, wrote these lines during a long illness in 1663. They became one of the best-loved…
- Psalm 90 — Lord, Thou Hast Been Our Dwelling Place
Attributed to Moses, the oldest psalm in the book, measuring human years against God's eternity and asking him to teach us to number our…
- St. Gertrude Prayer for the Holy Souls
Attributed to St. Gertrude the Great in Catholic devotional tradition. It is prayed as an act of intercession for the dead, and often as a…
- Stephen's Dying Prayer
The first martyr dies asking that the sin not be laid to the charge of the men stoning him — with Saul of Tarsus standing by. Prayed in…
- The De Profundis for the Dead
Psalm 130 has been the Church's psalm for the dead since the earliest Roman funeral rites, prayed at gravesides, at the tolling of the…
- The Prayer of the Thief on the Cross
'Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.' The one deathbed conversion in the Gospels, prayed in Orthodox liturgy before…