Prayer to Saint Monica for Christian mothers

 

From the liturgical year of Dom Prospero Gueranger

Prayer:

O thou model of mothers! Christendom honours thee as one of the most perfect types of human nature regenerated by Christ. Previous to the Gospel, during those long ages when woman was kept in a state of abjection, a Mother's influence on her children was feeble and insignificant; her duties were generally limited to looking after their bodily well-being; and if some mothers of those times have handed their names down to posterity, it is only because they taught their sons to covet and win the passing glory of this world. But we have no instance, in pagan times, of a mother training her son to virtue, following him from city to city that she might help him in the struggle with error and the passions, and encourage him to rise after a fall; we do not meet with one who devoted herself to continual prayer and tears, with a view to obtain her son's return to truth and virtue. Christianity alone has revealed a mother's mission and power.

What forgetfulness of thyself, O Monica, in thine incessant endeavour to secure Augustine's salvation! After God, it is for him thou livest; and to live for thy son in such a way as this, is it not living for God, Who deigns to use thee as the instrument of His grace? What carest thou for Augustine's glory and success in this world, when thou thinkest of the eternal dangers to which he is exposed, and of his being eternally separated from God and thee?

There is no sacrifice or devotedness which thy maternal heart is not ready to make, in order to satisfy the divine justice; it has its rights, and thou art too generous not to satisfy them. Thou waitest patiently, day and night, for God's good time to come. The delay only makes thy prayer more earnest. Hoping against all hope, thou at length feelest, within thy heart, the humble but firm conviction, that the object of all these tears can never be lost. Moved with mercy towards thee, as he was for the sorrowing mother of Naim, He speaks with that voice, which nothing can withstand: "Young man! I say to thee, arise!" and He gives him to his mother (St. Luke, vii. 14, 15); He gives thee the dear one whose death thou hadst so bitterly bewailed, but from whom thou couldst not tear thyself.

What a recompense of thy maternal love is this! God is not satisfied with restoring thee Augustine full of life; from the very depths of error and sin, this son of thine rises, and, at once, to the highest virtue. Thy prayers were that he might become a Catholic, and break certain ties which were both a disgrace and danger to him; when lo! one single stroke of grace has raised him to the sublime state of the Evangelical Counsels. Thy work is more than done, O happy mother! Speed thee to heaven; where, till thy Augustine joins thee, thou art to gaze on the saintly life and works of this son, whose salvation is due to thee, and whose bright glory, even while he sojourns here below, sheds the sweetest halo over thy venerated name.

From the eternal home, where thou art now happy with this son of thine, who owes to thee his life both of earth and heaven, cast a loving look, O Monica, on the many Christian mothers, who are now fulfilling on earth the hard but noble mission which was once thine. Their children are also dead with the death of sin; and they would restore them to true life, by the power of their maternal love. After the Mother of Jesus, it is to thee that they turn, O Monica, thou whose prayers and tears were once so efficacious and so fruitful. Take their cause in hand; thy tender and devoted heart cannot fail to compassionate them in the anguish, which was once thine own. Keep up their courage; teach them to hope.

The conversion of these dear ones is to cost them many a sacrifice; get them the generosity and fortitude needed for their paying the price thus asked of them by God. Let them remember, that the conversion of a soul is a greater miracle than the raising a dead man to life; and that divine justice demands a compensation, which they, the mothers of these children, must be ready to make. This spirit of sacrifice will destroy that hidden egotism, which is but too frequently mingled with what seems to be affection of the purest kind. Let them ask themselves, if they would rejoice, as thou didst, O Monica, at finding that a vocation to the religious life were the result of the conversion they have so much at heart? If they are thus disinterested, let them not fear; their prayers and sufferings must be efficacious; sooner or later, the wished-for grace will descend upon the Prodigal, and he will return to God and his mother.