Traditional prayer
Prayer to St. Monica
O God, the comforter of the afflicted, and help of such as put their trust in thee,
who with an eye of mercy didst regard the pious tears of holy Monica, for the conversion of her son Augustin:
grant, that by the prayers of both these thy servants, we may heartily bewail our sins, and find favour by thy grace.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
About this prayer
This is the collect, the opening prayer of the Mass, for St. Monica’s feast, in an English missal printed for lay Catholics in 1843. At Mass the Church does not pray to a saint so much as through her: she asks God for grace “by the prayers of both these thy servants,” Monica and her son. When the missal was printed her feast fell on 4 May; today the Church keeps her memorial on 27 August.
Notice what the prayer asks. It does not ask for your son or daughter at all. It asks that we “heartily bewail our sins.” Monica’s tears for Augustine are held up as the pattern for our own repentance, and that is where a mother’s prayer for a wandering child can begin.
Monica was born at Tagaste in North Africa about 331 (the Catholic Encyclopedia gives 333). Her husband Patritius was a pagan with a violent temper; he became a Christian shortly before he died. Her son Augustine left the faith for the Manichees; she followed him to Rome and to Milan, where, through St. Ambrose, he yielded after seventeen years of resistance and was baptized. She died at Ostia in 387 (Catholic Encyclopedia, “Saint Monica”). Augustine tells how a bishop sent her away with words she never forgot: “it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish.” As she lay dying she asked only this: “remember me at the Lord’s altar, wherever you be” (Confessions, Books III and IX, trans. E. B. Pusey).
She was a widow as well as a mother. The 1843 Missal sets as the Epistle of her Mass St. Paul’s words on widows: “she that is a widow indeed and desolate, let her trust in God, and continue in supplications and prayers night and day” (1 Timothy 5:5). After the collect, name the person you are carrying to God, and stay a while.
When to pray it
- On 27 August, her memorial, and in the nine days before it.
- For a child, a husband or a friend who has left the faith.
- For a difficult marriage. Hers was one. But Monica’s patience is not a rule to stay where you or your children are in danger: the Church permits spouses to live apart when living together has become impossible (CCC 1649, 2383). If you are afraid, call 911 in an emergency, or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (or text START to 88788).
- In widowhood.
- At Mass, before Communion, for the one you are praying for.