Console the disconsolate, Ahura Mazda

Great is the gloom that death casts around us. Time fails to soften the sorrows and heal the wounds of those that are disconsolate by temperament. Endowed with deep emotional nature and gentle feelings, they cannot forget the dear ones that are torn from them. They cannot be comforted by consoling words.

Death lacerates the heart of fond parents by snatching away from their bosom their only child that was the apple of their eyes. The devoted wife in the neighborhood is deprived of her doting husband, who was the idol of her heart and was all that she most loved on earth. Life seems to be empty and hollow to yet another father who has lost his youthful son, who was the joy of his heart and pride of his life.

The bereaved grieve and weep, sigh and sob, cry and pray that thou, their God, may give them back their dear ones, who had shared their joys and sorrows at the fire hearth, but thou dost not give them back. The dead have gone to the world from where there is no return.

With the passing away of their beloved ones, flowers seem to have lost their fragrance, life is shorn of its sweetness, the world has lost its light, and everything around seems to be dead to them.

The dead do not pass out of the lives of their sorrowing survivors. The music of their voices lingers in their minds, their images float before their vision, their faces haunt them during the day, and they dream them at night. If they walk in the garden they think they see the airy figures of thcir dear ones under the shade of the pine trees, if they turn aside they feel they are followed by the ghosts of their dead, if they close the door of their abodes they think they hear the dead knocking at their doors, if they open the doors they hear the retreating steps of the dead.

Heal the wounds, I pray, of their bruised and broken hearts, thou the Compassionate Healer. Wipe away the hot tears that drench their eyes swollen with weeping. Give them courage when sorrow has cast them down. Sustain them in their grief and give them strength to bear their suffering. Sorely do they need thy sympathy and pity. Comfort them with thy soothing protection. By day and by night, they moan to thee for they have none but thee for their refuge. Be by their side, Ahura Mazda, that forlorn in life as they are, they may lean on thee, their loving Father, in their loneliness.

This page was last updated on Friday, February 11, 2005.