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1765 Regina Begin the Thirty Days

Oremus Let us pray

For my husband, gone before me

The Church’s prayer for a man who has died, from the 1888 Baltimore Manual of Prayers. Pray it for your husband by name, with Scripture on praying for the dead.

Traditional prayer

Prayer for a Husband Who Has Died

O Lord, incline Thine ear unto the prayers whereby we humbly call upon Thee to show mercy unto the soul of Thy servant N.,

which Thou hast commanded to depart out of this life;

that it may please Thee to set him in a place of peace and light, and give him a part with Thy Saints.

Source “For a Man deceased,” in “Various Prayers for the Dead,” A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, prepared by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 1888), pp. 592–593

About this prayer

This is the Church’s own prayer for a man who has died: the prayer Inclina, Domine, aurem tuam, said for one man deceased in the daily Mass for the dead of the traditional Roman Missal and in the Office of the Dead of the Roman Ritual. The English is the one the 1888 Manual of Prayers gives among its “Various Prayers for the Dead.” Where it prints “N.” the book adds the instruction “here express the name”: say his name. It asks one thing, and asks it well: that God “set him in a place of peace and light, and give him a part with Thy Saints.” The book prints it without a closing “Amen”; add your own, and follow it with the Eternal Rest.

Praying for the dead is as old as the Scriptures: “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins” (2 Machabees 12:46, Douay-Rheims; 2 Maccabees in modern Bibles). The Catechism teaches that the Church has honoured the dead from the beginning and offered prayer for them, above all the Mass, so that once purified they may see God (CCC 1032).

St. Monica, dying far from home, asked her sons for one thing. “Lay,” she said, “this body any where; let not the care for that any way disquiet you: this only I request, that you would remember me at the Lord’s altar, wherever you be” (Confessions, Book IX, trans. E. B. Pusey). Ask your parish to offer a Mass for your husband, on the anniversary of his death and whenever you can.

His earthly life has ended; your love for him has not. Praying for him is how that love keeps working. If he took his own life, do not stop: the Church teaches that we must not give up hope for the eternal salvation of those who take their own lives, and she prays for them (CCC 2283).

When to pray it

  • Every day, by name, at your morning or night prayers.
  • At Mass, especially when a Mass is offered for him.
  • On the anniversary of his death, on his birthday, and on your wedding anniversary.
  • At his grave.
  • If grief has become a darkness you cannot see out of, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In an emergency, call 911.

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Sources

  1. A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity (1888), pp. 592–593: For a Man deceased
  2. Roman Missal, Daily Mass for the Dead: collect For a Man, “Inclina, Domine, aurem tuam” (Latin–English)
  3. Rituale Romanum (Mame, approved 1906), Officium defunctorum, p. 153: Pro uno defuncto, “Inclina, Domine, aurem tuam”
  4. 2 Machabees 12, Douay-Rheims
  5. Catechism of the Catholic Church 1032
  6. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2283
  7. St. Augustine, Confessions, Book IX, trans. E. B. Pusey (Project Gutenberg)
  8. 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

How this page is made The prayer is copied from the public-domain source named on the card. The notes around it were drafted with AI assistance and checked by a separate AI review against the sources listed above. It is not an official Church document: where anything here differs from the Church’s own texts, hers govern.