After a death, including the formal mourning periods traditions set.
Cited background on how traditions meet this moment, with no ritual instructions. The texts further down come from named editions and were checked against them; none has yet been signed by a reviewer credentialed in its tradition. How that works.
A death hands the living two jobs at once: honoring the dead and surviving the first weeks without them. Most traditions answer with a calendar. Judaism counts seven days of shiva, thirty days of shloshim, and, for a parent, eleven months of Mourner's Kaddish said in community. Orthodox Christians hold memorial services on the third, ninth and fortieth days and again at one year. Hindu families observe roughly thirteen days of withdrawal before shraddha rites. Muslims generally limit formal mourning to three days, except a widow, whose iddah lasts four months and ten days. The quiet genius of these calendars is practical: they make decisions on behalf of exhausted people, settling when to gather, when to return to work, and when to remember.
Where no calendar exists, the work shifts to individuals. Many Protestant and non-religious mourners assemble their own markers: a memorial gathering, an annual visit, a candle, a donation. Grief research has moved in the same direction. The continuing bonds model, introduced by Klass, Silverman and Nickman in 1996, treats an ongoing inner relationship with the dead as ordinary rather than pathological. Anniversaries are the hard test, since acute grief often returns on significant dates whether or not a tradition names them. People arriving at a page like this usually want three things: what to say to the bereaved, how long mourning lasts in a given tradition, and whether what they are still feeling months later is normal.
Across traditions
Awareness-level notes: what this moment tends to involve, tradition by tradition. Each links to its background page.
Jewish mourning is the most fully staged calendar: aninut between death and burial, shiva for seven days at home with the community visiting, shloshim through the thirtieth day with entertainment set aside, and, for a parent, Mourner's Kaddish recited for eleven months with a minyan. A grave marker is often dedicated at an unveiling within the first year, and the yahrzeit returns annually on the Hebrew date. Observance varies considerably across Orthodox, Conservative and Reform communities. What a visitor says is fixed too, and shorter than the staging suggests. On hearing of the death the words are Baruch Dayan HaEmet, blessed is the true Judge. On leaving a house of mourning the visitor says HaMakom yenachem etchem, may the Omnipresent comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. The rule around both is that the mourner speaks first, so a visitor who sits in silence has done it correctly.
Burial happens quickly, preceded by the janazah prayer. Formal mourning is generally limited to about three days, when the community visits and offers condolences. A widow is the exception: she traditionally observes iddah, a waiting period of four months and ten days with a restrained, home-centered life. Extended public mourning is discouraged in classical teaching, though condolence customs, gatherings and remembrance practices vary widely by school, culture and family.
Grief in Orthodox Christianity is paced by memorial services, called mnemosyno in Greek practice and panikhida in Slavic practice, traditionally offered on the third, ninth and fortieth days after death and at one year, with the fortieth day carrying particular weight. A dish of boiled wheat, kollyva, is often blessed and shared. Many families continue memorials on later anniversaries. Details vary among Greek, Slavic, Antiochian and other communities.
The funeral Mass is the center, but remembrance continues: Masses are customarily offered for the deceased in the early days after death, around the thirtieth day (the Month's Mind, still kept in some countries), and on anniversaries. November is dedicated to the dead, with All Souls' Day on November 2 and widespread cemetery visits. After the funeral itself, none of this is obligatory; observance is left to the family, and customs differ by country and parish.
Most Protestant churches set no fixed mourning calendar. A funeral or memorial service is held whenever the family can gather, sometimes weeks after the death, and the congregation's care tends to arrive as presence and food rather than prescribed rites. Many congregations read the names of members who died that year on All Saints' Sunday. Practice varies enormously by denomination, from liturgical Lutheran and Anglican patterns to very informal evangelical ones.
After cremation the immediate family typically observes around thirteen days of mourning, a period regarded as ritually impure, with temple visits, celebrations and rich food set aside. Shraddha rites near the end of this period, and again at the first anniversary and annually thereafter, sustain the bond with ancestors. Length and detail vary by region, community and circumstance, so two Hindu households may keep noticeably different observances.
Many Mahayana, Tibetan and East Asian communities frame the first forty-nine days after death as an intermediate period, with memorials often held every seventh day and a significant service on the forty-ninth. Japanese Buddhist families may add later milestones such as the hundredth day and annual memorials. Theravada communities emphasize merit-making gatherings instead of a fixed count. What these observances are understood to accomplish differs by school.
The funeral rites are called Antam Sanskar, and the tone is acceptance rather than protracted lament; loud grieving and permanent monuments are traditionally discouraged. Families commonly undertake a complete reading of the Guru Granth Sahib in the days after a death, concluding with a bhog gathering that closes the formal mourning period, often within about ten days. Customs around meals, condolence visits and timing vary by family and region.
There is no inherited calendar, which some mourners experience as freedom and others as a gap. Celebrant-led ceremonies, such as humanist funerals, center the life that was lived. Beyond the funeral, non-religious mourners often build their own structures: an annual gathering on the anniversary, a donation in the person's name, an object kept, a place visited. Grief research supports this, finding that an ongoing inner bond with the dead is common and can be healthy.
When a family spans traditions, the weeks after a death raise practical questions: whose calendar governs the memorial dates, which customs the household keeps, and how relatives are welcomed into unfamiliar observances. Many families layer practices, keeping one tradition's funeral and another's memorial rhythm. Clergy and chaplains who work across traditions can help a family agree early on what is essential to each side. There is no single standard; negotiation is the practice.
Texts from their published editions
Each text below comes from the edition named under it and was checked twice, independently, before it appeared. Neither check was a person. Where the two disagreed by even one character, the text is not shown here. That is a claim about wording only: these are not selected or endorsed for any particular situation, and nobody credentialed in the tradition has signed them. Older spelling is kept as the edition prints it. The full record, including the texts we held back because the two transcriptions disagreed, is at the verification record.
A Suttanipata discourse on the inevitability of death and on grief as a barb that the mourner draws out rather than deepens. It is used pastorally rather than liturgically, read at funerals and in bereavement teaching across Theravada communities, and is one of the canonical sources for Buddhist counsel to the bereaved.
English · The Sacred Books of the East, Vol. X: The Dhammapada and Sutta-Nipata, 1881Read twice, independently
Without a cause and unknown is the life of mortals in this world, troubled and brief, and combined with pain.
For there is not any means by which those that have been born can avoid dying; after reaching old age there is death, of such a nature are living beings.
As ripe fruits are early in danger of falling, so mortals when born are always in danger of death.
As all earthen vessels made by the potter end in being broken, so is the life of mortals.
Both young and grown-up men, both those who are fools and those who are wise men, all fall into the power of death, all are subject to death.
Of those who, overcome by death, go to the other world, a father does not save his son, nor relatives their relations.
Mark! while relatives are looking on and lamenting greatly, one by one of the mortals is carried off, like an ox that is going to be killed.
So the world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world.
For him, whose way thou dost not know, either when he is coming or when he is going, not seeing both ends, thou grievest in vain.
If he who grieves gains anything, (although he is only) a fool hurting himself, let the wise man do the same.
Not from weeping nor from grieving will any one obtain peace of mind; (on the contrary), the greater his pain will be, and his body will suffer.
He will be lean and pale, hurting himself by himself, (and yet) the dead are not saved, lamentation (therefore) is of no avail.
He who does not leave grief behind, goes (only) deeper into pain; bewailing the dead he falls into the power of grief.
Look at others passing away, men that go (to what they deserve) according to their deeds, beings trembling already here, after falling into the power of death.
In whatever manner people think (it will come to pass), different from that it becomes, so great is the disappointment (in this world); see, (such are) the terms of the world.
Even if a man lives a hundred years or even more, he is at last separated from the company of his relatives, and leaves life in this world.
Therefore let one, hearing (the words of) the saint, subdue his lamentation; seeing the one that has passed away and is dead, (let him say): 'He will not be found by me (any more).'
As a house on fire is extinguished by water, so also the wise, sensible, learned, clever man rapidly drives away sorrow that has arisen, as the wind a tuft of cotton.
He who seeks his own happiness should draw out his arrow (which is) his lamentation, and complaint, and grief.
He who has drawn out the arrow and is not dependent (on anything) will obtain peace of mind; he who has overcome all sorrow will become free from sorrow, and blessed (nibbuta).
V. Fausboll and F. Max Muller. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1881. Published 1881, before 1929, US public domain, and both translators died before 1929. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
A short petitionary prayer to Mary beginning "Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary", popularized in the seventeenth century and long associated with Claude Bernard. It is used at moments of acute distress and is a standard entry in indulgenced prayer collections. No restriction on who may say it.
REMEMBER, O most loving Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, and sought thine intercession, was left forsaken. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, My Mother. To thee I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word, despise not my words, but graciously hear and grant my prayer. Amen.
John Murphy and Company, Baltimore, 1889. Published 1889, before 1929, US public domain. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
A short petitionary prayer to Mary beginning "Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary", popularized in the seventeenth century and long associated with Claude Bernard. It is used at moments of acute distress and is a standard entry in indulgenced prayer collections. No restriction on who may say it.
REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions; but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.
1910. Published 1910, before 1929, US public domain. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
One of the seven penitential psalms and the psalm most associated in Catholic practice with prayer for the dead, said at funerals, in the Office of the Dead, and privately after a death. Catholic English editions follow Vulgate numbering, so it appears as Psalm 129 in Douay-Rheims and Psalm 130 in most other Bibles.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so this entry is tied to one named edition and makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting.
A psalm for David. The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing.
He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment:
He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice, for his own name's sake.
For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me.
Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice which inebreateth me, how goodly is it!
And thy mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And that I may dwell in the house of the Lord unto length of days.
Challoner revision. John Murphy Company, Baltimore, 1899. Published 1899, before 1929, US public domain. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so this entry is tied to one named edition and makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting.
An eleventh-century Marian antiphon, sung at Compline for much of the liturgical year and said at the close of the rosary. It is also sung at Catholic funerals, notably for clergy and religious. Widely known in Latin chant and in numerous English prose renderings.
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy; our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us; and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus; O clement, O pious, O sweet Virgin Mary.
John Murphy and Company, Baltimore, 1889. Published 1889, before 1929, US public domain. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Bienaventurados los pobres en espíritu: porque de ellos es el reino de los cielos.
Bienaventurados los que lloran: porque ellos recibirán consolación.
Bienaventurados los mansos: porque ellos recibirán la tierra por heredad.
Bienaventurados los que tienen hambre y sed de justicia: porque ellos serán hartos.
Bienaventurados los misericordiosos: porque ellos alcanzarán misericordia.
Bienaventurados los de limpio corazón: porque ellos verán á Dios.
Bienaventurados los pacificadores: porque ellos serán llamados hijos de Dios.
Bienaventurados los que padecen persecución por causa de la justicia: porque de ellos es el reino de los cielos.
Bienaventurados sois cuando os vituperaren y os persiguieren, y dijeren de vosotros todo mal por mi causa, mintiendo.
Gozaos y alegraos; porque vuestra merced es grande en los cielos: que así persiguieron á los profetas que fueron antes de vosotros.
Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera, 1909 revision. 1909. Published 1909, before 1929, US public domain, and distributed as public domain by ebible.org. Later Reina-Valera revisions such as RVR1960 are in copyright and are not used here. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
En lugares de delicados pastos me hará yacer: junto á aguas de reposo me pastoreará.
Confortará mi alma; guiaráme por sendas de justicia por amor de su nombre.
Aunque ande en valle de sombra de muerte, no temeré mal alguno; porque tú estarás conmigo: tu vara y tu cayado me infundirán aliento.
Aderezarás mesa delante de mí, en presencia de mis angustiadores: ungiste mi cabeza con aceite: mi copa está rebosando.
Ciertamente el bien y la misericordia me seguirán todos los días de mi vida: y en la casa de Jehová moraré por largos días.
Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera, 1909 revision. 1909. Published 1909, before 1929, US public domain, and distributed as public domain by ebible.org. Later Reina-Valera revisions such as RVR1960 are in copyright and are not used here. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Cantique de David. L'Eternel est mon berger: je ne manquerai de rien.
Il me fait reposer dans de verts pâturages, Il me dirige près des eaux paisibles.
Il restaure mon âme, Il me conduit dans les sentiers de la justice, A cause de son nom.
Quand je marche dans la vallée de l'ombre de la mort, Je ne crains aucun mal, car tu es avec moi: Ta houlette et ton bâton me rassurent.
Tu dresses devant moi une table, En face de mes adversaires; Tu oins d'huile ma tête, Et ma coupe déborde.
Oui, le bonheur et la grâce m'accompagneront Tous les jours de ma vie, Et j'habiterai dans la maison de l'Eternel Jusqu'à la fin de mes jours.
Louis Segond. 1910. Published 1910, before 1929, US public domain; the translator died in 1885. Later Segond revisions such as Segond 21 are in copyright and are not used here. Source
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Four words said on hearing that someone has died: blessed is the true Judge. The Mishnah lists it among the blessings said on news, the one for news that is bad, and it is what a Jewish family says aloud at the moment they are told. It is also the phrase written at the top of a death announcement, which is how most people meet it.
Sefaria, 2026. Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. The Mishnah itself is ancient and the pointing follows the standard printed editions. Checked against Hebrew Wikisource's separately keyed vocalized Mishnah. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-20. Cite as: Mishnah Berakhot 9:2, Mishnah, Torat Emet edition, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
No English is set beside the Hebrew. The blessing is four words and the usual English, “blessed is the true Judge”, is not taken here from any edition: the one public-domain prayer book that prints it, Singer’s of 1904, gives it only as the tail of an elided formula, “On hearing Evil Tidings: — the true Judge”, with the opening words printed once further up the page. Setting a translation beside it that came from nowhere would be the failure this site exists to avoid. The full blessing as it is said in the liturgy opens with the standard formula naming God, and saying a blessing has conditions this entry makes no claim about; what is verified here is the wording of the four words the Mishnah records.
Bless the LORD, O my soul: a psalm of thanks for forgiveness and healing, which sets human frailty, days like grass, against a mercy that does not end.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Cite as: Psalms 103:1-22, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The English keeps the line breaks of one digitisation of the 1917 volume. The second, which it was checked against, stores each verse as running text, so it confirms the words and cannot confirm where a line ends.
Six verses that begin with How long and end in trust. It is among the psalms customarily said for a person who is ill, and it is short enough to be said at a bedside.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Cite as: Psalms 13:1-6, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The English keeps the line breaks of one digitisation of the 1917 volume. The second, which it was checked against, stores each verse as running text, so it confirms the words and cannot confirm where a line ends.
A penitential Song of Ascents calling out from the depths. Recited in Jewish practice at times of crisis and serious illness, added to the daily service on the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the Ashkenazi rite, and said communally for a person in danger.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-02. Cite as: Psalms 130:1-8, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The two columns do not cover quite the same span: the Hebrew opens with the psalm's superscription, “A Song of Ascents”, which the English published here does not carry, because the two transcription passes over the JPS volume agreed only from the first verse proper.
A psalm of trust that ends with the path of life. In many communities it is read in a house of mourning on days when the usual mourning psalm is not said, and at funerals on those days.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Cite as: Psalms 16:1-11, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The English keeps the line breaks of one digitisation of the 1917 volume. The second, which it was checked against, stores each verse as running text, so it confirms the words and cannot confirm where a line ends.
A short psalm of trust attributed to David, widely used at funerals, at memorial gatherings and at the Sabbath afternoon meal in some communities. In Jewish use it is read in Hebrew from the Book of Psalms and is not tied to a fixed liturgical slot the way the fixed prayers are.
Sefaria, from the Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex at tanach.us, 2026. Tanach.us states that all biblical Hebrew text on its site may be viewed or copied without restriction, and Sefaria labels this version Public Domain. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-02. Cite as: Psalms 23:1-6, Tanach with Nikkud, a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex, via Sefaria.org. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Wording and scope vary between editions and between communities, so each edition here is named and this entry makes no claim about which form is right in a given setting. The two columns do not cover quite the same span: the Hebrew opens with the psalm's superscription, “A Psalm of David”, which the English published here does not carry, because the two transcription passes over the JPS volume agreed only from the first verse proper.
A short sura of consolation: your Lord has not left you, and what comes will be better than what has gone. People turn to it in low spirits and in grief.
Tanzil Project (https://tanzil.net/), served by alquran.cloud, 2026. Not public domain, and the first licensed edition in this corpus. Tanzil grants permission to copy and distribute verbatim copies provided the source is named and tanzil.net is linked, and forbids altering the text. Both conditions are met here. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Source
Licensed, not public domain: copy it only word for word, and name and link the source as its terms require. The terms.
The Arabic is published without an English rendering. The securely public-domain English translations are nineteenth-century orientalist work that no Muslim community uses devotionally, and setting one beside the Arabic would present it as the meaning of the prayer. Recitation in Islamic practice has conditions this entry makes no claim about; what is verified here is the wording of the edition named below.
The opening sura, recited in every unit of each of the five daily prayers and so the most frequently said text in Islam. It is also read for the sick, at gravesides and at the start of gatherings in many communities.
Tanzil Project (https://tanzil.net/), served by alquran.cloud, 2026. Not public domain, and the first licensed edition in this corpus. Tanzil grants permission to copy and distribute verbatim copies provided the source is named and tanzil.net is linked, and forbids altering the text. Both conditions are met here. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-04. Source
Licensed, not public domain: copy it only word for word, and name and link the source as its terms require. The terms.
The Arabic is published without an English rendering. The securely public-domain English translations are nineteenth-century orientalist work that no Muslim community uses devotionally, and setting one beside the Arabic would present it as the meaning of the prayer. Recitation in Islamic practice has conditions this entry makes no claim about; what is verified here is the wording of the edition named below.
The words Yunus called out from the darkness: there is no god but you, glory to you, I was among the wrongdoers. Hadith describe it as a prayer no Muslim makes in distress without being answered.
Tanzil Project (https://tanzil.net/), served by alquran.cloud, 2026. Not public domain, and the first licensed edition in this corpus. Tanzil grants permission to copy and distribute verbatim copies provided the source is named and tanzil.net is linked, and forbids altering the text. Both conditions are met here. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Source
Licensed, not public domain: copy it only word for word, and name and link the source as its terms require. The terms.
The Arabic is published without an English rendering. The securely public-domain English translations are nineteenth-century orientalist work that no Muslim community uses devotionally, and setting one beside the Arabic would present it as the meaning of the prayer. Recitation in Islamic practice has conditions this entry makes no claim about; what is verified here is the wording of the edition named below. The verse is given whole, as the edition prints it, including the words that introduce the prayer, because this text is used on condition that it is not altered, and a verse cut short is altered.
The verse containing the words said on hearing of a death or any loss: we belong to God and to him we return. The phrase is on the lips of Muslims everywhere at a bereavement.
Tanzil Project (https://tanzil.net/), served by alquran.cloud, 2026. Not public domain, and the first licensed edition in this corpus. Tanzil grants permission to copy and distribute verbatim copies provided the source is named and tanzil.net is linked, and forbids altering the text. Both conditions are met here. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Source
Licensed, not public domain: copy it only word for word, and name and link the source as its terms require. The terms.
The Arabic is published without an English rendering. The securely public-domain English translations are nineteenth-century orientalist work that no Muslim community uses devotionally, and setting one beside the Arabic would present it as the meaning of the prayer. Recitation in Islamic practice has conditions this entry makes no claim about; what is verified here is the wording of the edition named below. The verse is given whole, as the edition prints it, including the words that introduce the prayer, because this text is used on condition that it is not altered, and a verse cut short is altered.
The kontakion for the departed, sung at Orthodox funerals and at the memorial services that follow them. It asks rest for the person who has died, in a place without sickness, sorrow or sighing.
With the Saints give rest, O Christ, to the soul of thy servant, where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting.
Isabel Florence Hapgood. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York, 1906. Published 1906, before 1929, US public domain, and the translator died in 1928. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Hapgood's is one English rendering among several, and most parishes today use a later one; hers is printed here because it is the one that is out of copyright. She is also not consistent with herself. The same prayer appears with different punctuation in different services of the same 1906 volume, so this is the text as printed in the Order for the Burial of the Dead (Laymen), and makes no claim to be the only form.
The hymn of Pascha, sung over and over through the Easter season and used as a greeting between people in that season. It is also sung at the burial of a Christian who dies during Easter week, which is where its use at a death comes from.
Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down Death by death, and upon those in the tomb bestowing life.
Isabel Florence Hapgood. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York, 1906. Published 1906, before 1929, US public domain, and the translator died in 1928. Retrieved and verified 2026-09-17. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Hapgood's is one English rendering among several, and most parishes today use a later one; hers is printed here because it is the one that is out of copyright. She is also not consistent with herself. The same prayer appears with different punctuation in different services of the same 1906 volume, so this is the text as printed in the Order for the Burial of the Dead (Laymen), and makes no claim to be the only form.
One of the penitential psalms, appointed in the 1662 Burial of the Dead and widely used in Protestant and Anglican practice at grief, depression and crisis. Anglicans usually meet it in the Coverdale psalter form printed in the Prayer Book rather than in a Bible translation.
Out of the deep have I called vnto thee, O Lord : Lord hear my voice.
O Let thine ears consider well : the voice of my complaint
Jf thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is don amiss : O Lord, who may abide it ?
For there is mercy with thee : therefore shalt thou be feared.
I look for the Lord, my soul doth wait for him : in his word is my trust.
My soul fleeth vnto the Lord : before the morning watch, J say, before the morning watch.
O Jsrael, trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy : and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he shall redeem Israel : from all his sins.
Church of England, 1662. Published 1662, long before 1929, US public domain. UK Crown patent applies within the United Kingdom, so this edition is used here on the US basis only. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
The psalm most used in Protestant and Anglican pastoral practice at illness, dying and funerals. Anglicans encounter it in two distinct English forms that are not interchangeable: Miles Coverdale's psalter, bound into the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and used for said and sung offices, and the King James Version rendering used in most Protestant Bible reading.
The Lord is my shepherd : therefore can J lack nothing.
He shall feed me in a green pasture : and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.
He shall convert my soul : and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness, for his names sake.
Yea, though J walk through the valley of the shadow of death, J will fear no evil : for thou art with me, thy rod, and thy staff comfort me,
Thou shalt prepare a table before me, against them that trouble me : thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be full.
But [thy] loving kindness and mercy shall follow me all the dayes of my life : and J will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Church of England, 1662. Published 1662, long before 1929, US public domain. UK Crown patent applies within the United Kingdom, so this edition is used here on the US basis only. Source
Out of copyright in the United States on the basis stated here, and free to reuse there. Please keep the citation with it.
Ask what the family is observing before assuming anything. A Jewish colleague may be home for a week and then partly withdrawn for a month; a Muslim widow may decline invitations for four months; an Orthodox family may be preparing a fortieth-day service just as everyone else has moved on. Put the dates in your own calendar: the end of a mourning period, the first anniversary, and any observance days the family names. Use the dead person's name; most mourners say hearing it helps more than careful silence. Ask about dietary rules before bringing food. Expect grief to resurface around anniversaries, birthdays and holidays, and check in then, not only in the first week. If you are a nurse, chaplain or funeral director, ask which community contact the family wants involved rather than guessing at the right rite, and ask what they need rather than what the textbook says their tradition needs.
When to call someone instead: Call the family's own clergy or community leader whenever a question involves timing, obligation or the conduct of a rite; a reference page cannot rule on what a specific community requires. Hospital and hospice chaplains can locate the right contact across traditions and are trained for exactly this moment. For a non-religious family, an accredited celebrant can shape a memorial around the life itself. When grief is not softening at all after many months, or daily functioning has broken down, a grief counselor or physician is the right call, since prolonged grief can need clinical support.
Need your own words right now? The composer assembles a short prayer for grief and mourning from human-written lines, with or without religious language, free and without sending anything you type to anyone.
Jewish mourning unfolds in named stages: shiva, the first seven days after burial spent largely at home; shloshim, the thirty days counted from the funeral, which include shiva; and, for someone mourning a parent, eleven months of reciting Mourner's Kaddish with a congregation. The anniversary of the death, the yahrzeit, is then marked every year on the Hebrew date. Communities differ in how strictly each stage is kept, so the family's own rabbi is the authority on their practice.
What is the 40-day memorial in Orthodox Christianity?#
Orthodox Christians traditionally hold memorial services on the third, ninth and fortieth days after a death, and again at one year, a pattern attested as far back as the Apostolic Constitutions. The fortieth day is often the largest gathering, associated with the Ascension and with the forty days of mourning for Moses. The service is called mnemosyno in Greek usage and panikhida in Slavic usage, and blessed boiled wheat, kollyva, is often shared afterward.
Classical Islamic teaching limits formal mourning to about three days for most relatives, during which the community visits and offers condolences. A widow is the exception: she traditionally observes iddah, a waiting period of four months and ten days marked by a restrained, home-centered life. Practices around gatherings, recitation and later remembrance vary considerably among communities and legal schools, so families may keep quite different customs from one another.
Continuing bonds is the idea, introduced by researchers Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman and Steven Nickman in 1996, that maintaining an inner relationship with someone who died is a normal part of grief rather than a failure to move on. Memories, imagined conversations, kept objects and anniversary rituals are typical expressions. Later research is nuanced: such bonds help many people and not others, and outcomes differ across cultures, so no single style of grieving is prescribed.
How do you mark a death anniversary without religion?#
Grief researchers describe anniversary reactions: a return of sadness, restlessness and physical symptoms around significant dates, whether or not the date is formally observed. Non-religious mourners often plan for the day deliberately, gathering people who loved the person, visiting a meaningful place, cooking a favorite meal, giving to a cause, or simply taking the day off. Naming the date in advance to friends usually works better than hoping it passes unnoticed.
The claims above rest on the following. Where practice varies, the variation is stated rather than resolved.
Timeline of Jewish Mourning, My Jewish Learning. Read in full. Documents aninut, shiva, shloshim, the eleven months of Kaddish for a parent, the unveiling, and yahrzeit observance.
Memorial Services, OrthodoxWiki. Read in full. Confirms memorial services on the third, ninth and fortieth days and at one year per the Apostolic Constitutions, the names mnemosyna and panikhida, and the blessing of kollyva.
How long can one mourn over the death of someone?, Al Hakam. Read in full. States the three-day limit on mourning for most relatives on hadith authority and the widow's iddah of four months and ten days on Quranic authority.
Antyeshti: Funeral Rites, Heart of Hinduism, ISKCON Educational Services. Read in full. Describes cremation, roughly thirteen days of mourning varying by community, the period of ritual impurity, and shraddha at the first anniversary and annually.
The Significance of the 49th Day Memorial, Midwest Buddhist Temple, Chicago. Reviewed via search. A temple's own explanation of the forty-nine day frame and weekly memorials in Japanese Buddhist practice; cross-checked against other Buddhist community sources.
Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief, Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman and Steven Nickman (1996). The founding anthology of continuing bonds theory. Consulted through the Wikipedia entry on continuing bonds, which summarizes the book and later research on when such bonds are adaptive.
What is a humanist funeral?, Humanists UK. Reviewed via search. Describes celebrant-led non-religious funerals centered on the life of the person who died.
