Wednesday, July 29, 2026From the news

Ashes and the Undying Name

Even when human care fails the grieving and the sacred remains of the little ones are dishonoured, Christ holds every child in His mercy and draws near to the broken-hearted with unfailing tenderness.

The Lord is near to those who are of a broken heart, and saves such as be of a contrite spirit.

Psalm 33:18 (34:18)

Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands.

Isaiah 49:15-16

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

There are wounds that open quietly and then keep aching for years. Ness lost her baby just before the twelve-week scan. She and her partner were given an urn with a little teddy bear on it, and for three years those ashes sat beside the scan picture—treasured, held, spoken to in the silence of a mother’s heart. Then the police investigation into the funeral directors revealed a bitter truth: the ashes could not have been her child’s. Records showed the real remains were collected days after the urn had already been placed in her hands. She was told they were animal remains. The shock, the disgust, the fresh grief over a grief already carried—these have left her mental health reeling. “How can somebody with a duty of care do this to my family?” she asked.

We do not turn away from such pain. The Church has always known that the loss of a child, even one never held in arms, is a deep tearing of the soul. The little ones who never drew breath outside the womb are still known to God. Their names—whether spoken on earth or not—are written in the Book of Life. Saint John Chrysostom reminds us that God’s providence extends even to the smallest, and the Desert Fathers teach us that every human life, however brief, is an icon of the living God. When human hands fail in their sacred duty, when trust is betrayed and holy remains are treated with carelessness or worse, the heart cries out. That cry is heard.

The Psalmist sings what Ness and every grieving parent need to hear: the Lord is near to those who are of a broken heart. Not distant, not waiting for us to compose ourselves, but near—closer than the ashes on the shelf, closer than the questions that will not rest. And the prophet Isaiah places the divine word beside a mother’s love: even if a woman could forget the child of her womb, the Lord will not forget. He has engraved us on the palms of His hands—the same hands that were pierced, the same hands that bless the little children and say the Kingdom belongs to such as these.

In the Orthodox way we do not rush past mourning. We sit with it, as the Myrrh-bearing Women sat at the tomb. We light candles. We say the Trisagion prayers for the departed, entrusting even the tiniest souls to the mercy of the Lover of mankind. The funeral director’s failure cannot erase the child’s existence before God, nor can it cancel the love that still flows from Ness’s heart. That love is already a participation in God’s own love; it is the beginning of theosis, the slow growing into the likeness of the One who never forgets.

Take heart, then, you who carry hidden losses. The comfort Christ promises to those who mourn is not a cheap forgetting. It is His own presence, quiet as the evening light after Vespers, steady as the prayer of the heart that keeps whispering “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy.” The ashes on the shelf may not have been what they seemed, but the child is held in the uncreated light where no deceit can enter. And you who remain are held too—broken heart and all—by the God who saves the contrite spirit and wipes away every tear in His time.