Saint Monica: The Mother Who Prayed Seventeen Years for Her Son

Seventeen years of prayer for one son who did not want to hear it. Her feast is kept on 27 August — the day before his.

There is a particular kind of prayer that gets very little attention: the prayer that is not answered for years. Not unanswered — just not yet. The prayer you make again on a Tuesday having made it every Tuesday for a decade.

The Church has a patron for exactly that, and her feast is 27 August. Her name is Monica, and she prayed for her son for seventeen years.

Who was Saint Monica?

Monica was born around 331 in Thagaste, in Roman North Africa — the town of Souk Ahras in modern Algeria. She was raised Christian and married a pagan municipal official named Patricius, a man with a temper who did not share her faith and was not faithful to her.

They had three children who survived: Navigius, Perpetua, and the eldest, Augustine.

Monica converted her husband, though only in the last year of his life; he was baptised in 371 and died shortly after. Her son took considerably longer.

The seventeen years

Augustine was brilliant, ambitious, and — by his own later account — determined to be anything other than what his mother wanted. He took a mistress, fathered a son, and at nineteen joined the Manichees, a dualist sect his mother regarded as a straightforward heresy.

Monica’s response was not argument. It was, for the most part, presence and prayer.

She did argue at first, and it went badly: she barred him from her house for a period. It was during this time that she went to a bishop and begged him to reason with Augustine. The bishop refused — Augustine was, he judged, too pleased with himself to be teachable yet — and gave Monica an instruction she did not want:

"Let him alone for a while. Only pray to God for him."

And then, seeing her weeping, the line that made her famous:

"Go your way; it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish."

She followed him to Italy

In 383 Augustine decided to leave Africa for Rome. Monica intended to go with him. He did not want her to, and so he lied: he told her he was seeing a friend off, waited until she was praying at a chapel by the harbour, and sailed without her.

She followed on the next ship.

When he moved from Rome to Milan, she moved to Milan. There she attached herself to the local bishop — Ambrose — whose preaching, as it turned out, was what finally reached her son. Augustine was baptised at the Easter Vigil of 387, at the age of thirty-two. Monica was fifty-five or fifty-six. She had been praying for this since he was about fifteen.

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What she said at the end

Monica died within the year, at Ostia, the port of Rome, waiting for a ship home to Africa. Augustine records her last words to him, and they are worth reading slowly by anyone who has prayed a long time for someone:

"Son, for my own part I have no further delight in anything in this life… There was indeed one thing for which I wished to tarry a little in this life, and that was that I might see you a Catholic Christian before I died. My God has exceeded this abundantly."

She had asked to be buried beside her husband in Thagaste. In the event she was buried at Ostia, and her relics were later moved to Rome, where they remain in the church of Sant’Agostino.

Why her feast is the day before her son’s

Monica’s feast is 27 August; Augustine’s is 28 August. The order is deliberate and it is the whole homily: the mother first, then the son she obtained. The Church put her the day before him so that nobody could tell his story without telling hers.

What Monica teaches about praying for someone

Persistence is not nagging

The bishop’s instruction to Monica — stop talking, keep praying — is uncomfortable because it removes the part we can control. But it is the part of her story that worked. Seventeen years of argument produced nothing. Seventeen years of prayer produced Augustine of Hippo.

Proximity matters

She followed him to two countries. She did not lecture him there; she was simply present, and she found him a better preacher than herself. Praying for someone often means staying in their life without conditions.

You may not see the outcome

Monica did — barely, and by her own account beyond what she had asked. Many do not. Her feast is kept by people who are still waiting, and the promise attached to it is the bishop’s: it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish.

How to keep 27 August

• Pray a decade for one person by name. The traditional devotion attached to Monica is specific rather than general — one person, named, every day.
• Read Book IX of the Confessions. It is short, and it is Augustine writing about his mother’s death. Little else in Christian literature comes close.
• The novena to Saint Monica begins on 18 August, finishing on her feast. It is prayed most often by mothers, and by anyone praying for a family member who has left the faith.
• Give a rosary to someone you are praying for. Not as a rebuke — as a fact. It is the oldest way of saying I am praying for you without saying it.

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If you keep a home altar, 27 August is a natural day to place a photograph there. Monica’s prayer was never abstract; it had a face and a name, and so should ours. Our guide to praying the Rosary sets out the mysteries by day if you want to begin.

Frequently asked questions

How long did Saint Monica pray for her son Augustine?

Seventeen years, by the traditional count — from around the time Augustine joined the Manichees at nineteen until his baptism at the Easter Vigil of 387, when he was thirty-two.

What is Saint Monica the patron saint of?

Mothers, wives, victims of adultery and of abuse, difficult marriages, disappointing children, and conversions. She is invoked above all by parents praying for children who have left the faith.

When is the feast of Saint Monica?

27 August — deliberately the day before the feast of her son, Saint Augustine, on 28 August.

What did the bishop tell Saint Monica?

He refused to argue with Augustine, telling her to leave him alone and only pray for him, and then — seeing her tears — that "it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish."

Where are the relics of Saint Monica?

She died at Ostia, the port of Rome, in 387. Her relics were later translated to Rome and are kept in the church of Sant’Agostino.

When is the novena to Saint Monica prayed?

It is usually begun on 18 August so that the ninth day falls on her feast, 27 August.