Prayers for Times of Grief

To Allah we belong and to him we shall return. Oh Allah, help me in my calamity and replace it with good.

--Muslim prayer

My eyes fail with watching for thy promise;

I ask, "When wilt thou comfort me?"

--Psalm 119

These two things have befallen you --

who will condole with you? --

devastation and destruction, famine and sword;

who will comfort you?

--Isaiah 51

Comfort, give comfort to my people.

--Isaiah 40

I grieved for my friend or my brother;

I went about as one who laments his mother,

bowed down and in mourning.

--Psalm 35

I weep and lament when I behold our beauty created in the likeness of God lying in the tomb disfigured, bereft of glory and form. 0 the marvel of it! What is this mystery concerning us? Why have we been delivered to corruption? Why have we been wedded unto death?

--Orthodox Funeral Hymn

It is as if the sun and the moon have left the sky.

--The Buddha

Oh, only for so short a while you

have loaned us to each other,

because we take form in your act of drawing us,

and we take life in your painting us,

and we breathe in your singing us.

But only for so short a while

have you loaned us to each other.

Because even a drawing cut in obsidian fades,

and the green feathers, the crown feathers,

of the Quetzal bird lose their color,

and even the sounds of the waterfall

die out in the dry season.

So, we too, because only for a short while

have you loaned us to each other.

--Aztec Indian Prayer

By the waters of Babylon

we sat down and wept.

--Psalm 137

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.

--John 20

This is the Hour of Lead --

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons--recollect the Snow --

First -- Chill -- Then Stupor -- then the letting go.

--Emily Dickinson

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