This week our community grieved for the premature birth, and death, of an infant. Too young to survive, he  lived long enough to be baptized and held in his mother's arms.
 

He was buried at a nearby monastery, using the Service of Burial for an Infant. I didn't attend, but read the service afterward. I was especially affected by these first verses from the Canon, :

O Word of God who didst impoverish thyself in the flesh and, without change, wast well-pleased to become an infant: Join the infant whom thou hast received, we pray, to the bosom of Abraham.  

Thou Who existest before all the ages wast seen as a child, and, as thou art good, thou didst promise Thy Kingdom unto children: Number this infant therein.

Thou hast accepted this undefiled infant, O Christ the Savior,  before he had been tempted by earthly sweetness, counting him worthy of eternal things, O lover of mankind.

O thou who ineffably didst bear the Wisdom and Word of the Father, heal the cruel wound of my soul, and appease the affliction of my heart.