For illness and bereavement

Accepting what cannot be changed, without pretending it is easy.

Resignation in Catholic usage does not mean giving up. It means handing over — accepting from God what cannot be altered, including the manner and hour of one’s death. It is prayed by the seriously ill and by those who love them.

The Prayer

O Lord my God, from this moment on
I accept from Your hand, willingly and submissively,
whatever kind of death You please to send me,
with all its sorrows, pains and anguish.

I accept the illness I am carrying,
the treatments and their failures,
and the loss of what I could once do.

Not because I want any of it,
but because You are my Father,
and I would rather be in Your hands than in charge.

Give me patience with those who care for me,
and honesty about what I feel.
And when the end comes, let me meet it with You. Amen.

About This Prayer

The tradition attaches a plenary indulgence at the hour of death to an act of resignation made in a state of grace — accepting death from God’s hand as satisfaction for sin. It is worth making now, in health, rather than trying to compose it later.