Patron Saint of Mothers
Patron saint: St. Monica · Feast day:
St. Monica is the patron saint of mothers. Her thirty years of tearful, persevering prayer for her wayward son Augustine — who became one of the greatest saints in Church history — make her the model for every mother who loves a child she cannot save, and prays anyway.
Who Is St. Monica?
St. Monica (331–387 AD) was a North African Christian woman who endured a difficult marriage to a pagan named Patricius and who prayed without ceasing for over thirty years for the conversion of her son Augustine. Augustine lived a life of intellectual restlessness and worldly pleasure, actively rejecting his mother's faith and living with a woman outside of marriage. Monica followed him from North Africa to Rome and then to Milan, never abandoning her prayer or her love. Augustine converted at age 32 under the influence of St. Ambrose. Her husband Patricius also converted before his death. Monica died at Ostia, Italy, at age 56, shortly after witnessing Augustine's conversion — saying she had nothing left to ask for. Augustine described her in his Confessions with profound tenderness and credited her prayers as the source of his conversion.
Why Is St. Monica the Patron Saint of Mothers, wives, those praying for a loved one's conversion, difficult marriages?
St. Monica is the patron saint of mothers because she exemplifies the specific form of love and suffering that belongs uniquely to motherhood — the love that cannot compel, can only pray. She could not make Augustine convert. She could not reason him into faith. She could only love him, pray for him, and trust God with the outcome across thirty years of apparent failure.
A bishop who consoled her when she was weeping over Augustine said it was impossible that the son of so many tears should perish. He was right. But Monica had no way of knowing that as she wept. She persevered in prayer without a guarantee of outcome — which is precisely what makes her patronage of mothers so apt.
She is particularly invoked by mothers whose children have left the faith, whose children are struggling with addiction or disordered behavior, and by all who love someone they cannot save and must entrust to God's care. She is also the patron of mothers in difficult marriages and those praying for the conversion of a spouse.
A bishop who consoled her when she was weeping over Augustine said it was impossible that the son of so many tears should perish. He was right. But Monica had no way of knowing that as she wept. She persevered in prayer without a guarantee of outcome — which is precisely what makes her patronage of mothers so apt.
She is particularly invoked by mothers whose children have left the faith, whose children are struggling with addiction or disordered behavior, and by all who love someone they cannot save and must entrust to God's care. She is also the patron of mothers in difficult marriages and those praying for the conversion of a spouse.
Prayer to St. Monica
St. Monica, mother who never gave up,
who crossed the sea to stay close to a son
who did not want you near —
we come to you with those we love
who are far from where we hoped they would be.
Children who have left the faith.
Children who are lost in ways we cannot fix.
Those we have prayed for so long
that we no longer know what to pray.
Give us your patience.
Give us your certainty that tears are not wasted.
Give us the grace to love without controlling
and to trust God with what we cannot carry.
St. Monica, pray for us. Amen.
Santa Mónica, madre que nunca se rindió,
que cruzaste el mar para permanecer cerca de un hijo
que no te quería cerca —
venimos a ti con los que amamos
que están lejos de donde esperábamos que estuvieran.
Hijos que han dejado la fe.
Hijos que están perdidos de maneras que no podemos arreglar.
Los que hemos rezado por ellos tanto tiempo
que ya no sabemos qué rezar.
Danos tu paciencia.
Danos tu certeza de que las lágrimas no se desperdician.
Danos la gracia de amar sin controlar
y de confiar a Dios lo que no podemos cargar.
Santa Mónica, ruega por nosotros. Amén.
Original composition by Rosarycard.net. Biographical information sourced from St. Augustine's Confessions and Butler's Lives of the Saints.
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