Consecrated Grief
At Red Bird Ministries, we know what it means to love a child you cannot hold in your arms. We carry grief that has changed us in ways we did not ask for and may not fully understand. Click here to download a guide to consecrating your grief.
Consecrating our grief is not about finding explanations or rushing to healing. Consecration is about our presence before God, and God’s presence with us. It is the promise that the Lord is close to the broken-hearted and desires to save those whose spirits are crushed. (Psalm 34:18) It is the hope that when the Lord allows terrible suffering in our lives, it is not for nothing.
Consecrating our grief to the Sacred Heart of Jesus may sound lofty or intimidating, especially if grief has left you tired, angry, or distant with God. But consecration is not an act of perfection—it is an act of honesty. It is a decision to place into the heart of Christ what is already weighing you down.
Jesus is not afraid of your sorrow, grief, or pain. He does not need you to clean it up before you offer it. He meets you as He met Mary and Martha at the tomb—with tears, with compassion, and with a heart that knows loss from the inside.
So often, our grief feels too big. We feel engulfed in it, swallowed by it, or consumed. Praying and reflecting on consecrating our grief can help us place what feels unbearable into the one place that can truly hold and honor it: the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
What does consecration mean?
To consecrate means to declare that something is sacred. Consecration means to solemnly dedicate or set apart for a sacred purpose or service, making something holy or fit for God's use. It means transforming something ordinary into something divine, and while our grief is not ordinary, it is meaningful to intentionally place it in God’s hands.
None of us chose our grief, but we do get to choose what we do with it. Consecrating our grief is an act of entrustment, giving our grief to God so He can use it in the most perfect way. When we are ready, we can make an act of the will to unite our grief with Jesus through consecration.
We may not feel anything after we consecrate our grief but that doesn’t change the spiritual reality that we are offering something very precious to God, asking Him to bless and make holy what we experience in grief, the loss we carry, and how we have been changed. Since the Lord allowed this suffering in our lives, He desires to use it to bring us closer to His heart.
In From Grief to Grace, author Jeanie Ewing writes:
Grief is often the means by which God permits us to grow in our interior lives and to draw nearer to Jesus and the suffering He endured out of love for us. When we learn to surrender our anguish to the God of love, despite the reality that we do not have answers to our painful questions nor resolutions to the what-ifs of our lives, we begin to live the Christian call to sacrificial love. And then Jesus transforms our suffering into love.
Consecration is biblical. In the book of Joshua, the Lord commanded Joshua to have the people consecrate themselves before they entered into the Promised Land. In Romans 12, Paul invites us to offer our bodies as a “living sacrifice”. Losing our child is the ultimate sacrifice, but when we offer that act to the Lord along with our grief, we give the Lord permission to use our suffering to bring beauty from ashes, for ourselves and others.
How do we give our grief to God?
Faith: To begin the process of consecrating our grief, we must have faith, even just faith the size of a mustard seed, that the Lord is present in our lives and loves us. That He sees us, is not indifferent, and desires to move in our lives as much as we will allow Him.
Lament: In order to fully give our grief to God, we have to be able to experience our grief as it actually is. Learning to lament and pouring out our whole heart to the Lord is an important part of the process. We can’t rush to make our grief holy without allowing our humanity to experience the fullness of the devastation we are living in and being completely honest with God.
State of Grace: When making a consecration, it is important to be in a state of grace and having received the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist so we can be as close to God as possible.
Prayer: We pray to the Holy Spirit to reveal what is true about who we are, who my child was, and who my child is now. We ask the Lord to fill our hearts with what is true, what we most need to receive from God, and what the Lord most desires to receive from us.
Humility: Pray for a disposition of humility of heart that can move us from self-pity to hope. Self-pity is a normal part of the grieving process. It is okay to be in a place where it feels unfair that our child died … because it was unfair. It was not right. But in time and with God’s grace, we can move from a place of “Why Me?” to a greater realization that we are not forgotten in our suffering. God did not allow this suffering for no reason.
Surrender: Surrender does not say that our grief is not important. Surrender means that our grief is so important that we want to give it to the God of the Universe, the lover of our souls. Surrender takes all the love we have for our child that has nowhere to go and places it into the heart of Christ.
Gift: In consecration, we make a gift of our trust to God. Blessed Solanus Casey invites us to “Thank God ahead of time for whatever He sees is best for [you]…Courage is half the battle – confidence in God is the soul of prayer – foster the latter and you have both.” We make a gift of trust to God that says, “I know you can do something with this suffering that I cannot.” It is a way to allow our suffering to be transformed into love.
Declaration: When we are ready, we make a decision and declaration consecrating our grief to God.
Steps to Consecration:
When we consecrate our grief to the Lord, with our free will, it takes on a special character. It is no longer just suffering. It is sacred suffering. There is no specific formula or right way to consecrate our grief, but we offer here a few practical suggestions for what one could do.
Address the Lord directly. Make the sign of the cross and then speak to God intimately in whatever feels most comfortable.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, my Lord and my God, I bring my grief to you today.”
Name your loss specifically.
“My son, John Paul Raphael, died on January 5, 2018.”
Acknowledge the impact of your grief in your life and your need for help. Be honest. Consider placing a hand over your heart as you tell God the truth of your suffering.
“This is too heavy for me.”
“The grief has crushed me and I don’t know how to live in this suffering.”
“Lord, grief has shattered my world and I barely recognize myself and don’t know how to be in the world.”
Make a declaration consecrating your grief to Jesus in your own words and entrust your child and your suffering to His Sacred Heart. We offer a Prayer of Consecration you may choose to use if you like.
“In your name, Jesus, I consecrate my grief and the loss and love I carry for my child to you, Jesus. I give it to your Sacred Heart and ask you to take care of it.”
Consider a concrete action or ritual you could do to impress your consecration on your heart more deeply.
Pray your consecration with a priest and ask for his blessing
Bless yourself with holy water or holy oil
Make a prayer of consecration after mass or in front of the Blessed Sacrament
Light a candle at Church after you make your consecration
Create a piece of artwork of your child’s name or an image of your grief and offer it to the Lord.
Prayer to Consecrate my Grief to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Jesus, Beloved Savior,
I come to You carrying a grief I did not choose and a sorrow I cannot outrun.
You know the ache of love pierced by death, and You do not turn away from my tears.
Today, I consecrate my grief to You— not because it is healed, not because it makes sense, but because you gave it to me and therefore already known by You.
I place the memory of my child, the weight of my longing, the anger, the silence, the unanswered questions into Your Sacred Heart, wounded yet alive with love.
Jesus, receive what I cannot carry.
Hold what I cannot fix.
Transform what I cannot understand.
Through the intercession of Our Lady of Sorrows, who stood beneath the Cross and loved without explanation, teach me how to remain, how to trust,
how to hope in you again—slowly, honestly, faithfully.
I consecrate my grief to Your Sacred Heart, Jesus.
Do with it what only Love can do.
Amen.
