Verses for Memorial Cards

How to choose in two steps

First choose by faith, because tradition sets the register of the card. A Catholic card, a Protestant card, a Jewish card, and a secular card each draw from a different well, and the right well is the one the person drank from.

Then choose by feeling. Within every tradition there are words that comfort the grieving, words that speak of hope, and words that honor the life that was lived. Ask which of those three the family most needs the card to do, and the list narrows itself.

Every text below may be printed freely. The scripture is quoted in the King James Version, and the prayers and poems are traditional or old enough to belong to everyone.

Christian verses for comfort

These passages console the living. They are the most common choices for a sudden or early loss, when the card's first work is to steady the people holding it.

King James Version

• "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul." Psalm 23, verses 1 to 3
• "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." Psalm 23, verse 4
• "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5, verse 4
• "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." Psalm 34, verse 18
• "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Revelation 21, verse 4

Christian verses for hope

These passages look forward. They suit a life defined by faith, and a family that wants the card to speak of promise rather than loss.

King James Version

• "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions." John 14, verses 1 and 2
• "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." John 11, verse 25
• "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8, verses 38 and 39
• "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." 2 Timothy 4, verse 7

Catholic prayers for the departed

Catholic cards traditionally carry the Church's own prayers for the dead. These are the texts generations of holy cards have used.

Traditional prayers

• "Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen." The Eternal Rest prayer, traditional
• "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis." The same prayer in its traditional Latin opening
• "Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal Church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen." Traditionally attributed to Saint Gertrude the Great
• "May he rest in peace. Amen." or "May she rest in peace. Amen." The traditional closing petition

Jewish texts of remembrance

Jewish cards speak of memory rather than destination. The central phrase hands the living their task, to remember in a way that blesses.

Traditional texts

• "May their memory be a blessing." The traditional phrase, in Hebrew zikhrono livrakhah for a man, zikhronah livrakhah for a woman
• "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Psalm 23, verse 1, traditionally recited in houses of mourning
• "The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore." Psalm 121, verse 8
• "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." Proverbs 31, verse 29, traditional in memory of a mother

Secular lines from public domain poetry

For a card without religious language, old poetry offers lines that have comforted mourners for more than a century, and all of these may be printed freely.

Public domain poetry

• "Better by far you should forget and smile / Than that you should remember and be sad." Christina Rossetti, Remember, 1862
• "I hope to see my Pilot face to face / When I have crost the bar." Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Crossing the Bar, 1889
• "Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room." Henry Scott Holland, from a sermon, 1910
• "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
• "To live in hearts we leave behind / Is not to die." Thomas Campbell, Hallowed Ground, 1825

Setting the verse on the card

Once you have the verse, the craft is mostly restraint. Put the full text on the back of the card, set large, with the citation in small type beneath it. If you want words on the front too, use a short fragment under the name, a phrase of five or six words at most.

Keep line breaks where the text wants them. Scripture breaks naturally at its commas and colons, and poetry should keep the poet's own line breaks, marked above with a slash.

Then read the finished card aloud once. The ear catches what the eye forgives, a clumsy break, a missing word, a verse that runs one line too long.