A Parent’s Prayer for a Departed Child

O Lord Jesus Christ our God, Master of life and death, Comforter of the sorrowful, with a pained and contrite heart I fall down before Thee and entreat Thee: remember, O Lord, in Thy kingdom the soul of Thy departed servant (handmaid) (name), and grant him eternal memory.

O Master of life and death, as by Thine all-wise and good will Thou didst give me this child, so hast Thou willed to part him from me. Blessed be Thy name, O Lord! I entreat Thee, O Judge of heaven and earth: in Thy boundless love for mankind forgive my departed child all his transgressions, voluntary and involuntary, in word and deed; and forgive us also, his parents, O Merciful One, our transgressions. We know the multitude of our sins before Thee; we know that we have transgressed Thy commandments and have not kept them. And if our child, departed from us, cared more in this temporal life for the vanity of his flesh than for Thee, his Lord and God; if he loved the pleasures of this world more than Thy word and commandment; if he gave himself to merriment and to the luxurious life of this world, and not to contrition of heart for his sins; if he was not zealous for vigil, fasting and prayer — I fervently entreat Thee: forgive, O all-good Father, my child all such transgressions; forgive and blot them out from him, and any other evil he may have done in this world.

O Lord Jesus Christ, as Thou didst raise the daughter of Jairus through the prayer and faith of her father, or heal the daughter of the Canaanite woman through the supplication and faith of her mother, so hear now this my prayer for my child, and disregard it not. Forgive him, O Lord, forgive him all his transgressions; bring up his soul from eternal torment, and make it dwell with Thy saints who have been well-pleasing to Thee from the ages, where there is no pain, no sorrow, no grief, no sighing, but life everlasting; for there is no man who shall live and not sin, for Thou alone art a stranger to all sin. May my child hear at Thy dread judgement Thine all-desired voice: “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”; for Thou art the Father of mercies and compassion, Thou art our life and resurrection, and to Thee we send up glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.