When it is said
A priest says it near the end of a short service that can be held at the time of a miscarriage or stillbirth, or later.
Its words say “we” and “us” throughout, so a mother and father can also pray it together at home.
It leaves a place for the baby’s name, if you gave one.
Where it comes from
No author known
A service for a loss before birth
The bishops of the Orthodox Church in America approved a short service of prayer after a miscarriage or stillbirth in October 2015, at their meeting in Detroit. They put it online for anyone to print and use. An earlier form of this prayer was already part of a service blessed in 2012 for their diocese of New York and New Jersey.
Orthodox Church in America, news of 26 October 2015; Orthodox Church in America, Service after a Miscarriage or Stillbirth; Diocese of New York and New Jersey, Service of Prayer for a Miscarried or Stillborn Child (2012)
Words from an older prayer
Several of its lines come from the daily prayer that bears the name of St Philaret of Moscow, among them “We dare not ask either a cross or consolation.” Philaret sent that prayer in 1849 to comfort a mother in the Russian royal family whose little daughter had died. Its words were not his own but a Russian translation of a meditation by Fénelon, a French archbishop.
Archpriest Pavel Khondzinsky, “The Way of the Magi” (2004), in Russian; OrthoChristian.com, St Philaret’s Daily Prayer in English
The Scripture in it
Immediately the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”
O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways!
“‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.”
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.