St. Monica: Feast Day, Patronage & Prayers
Updated: Oct 3
Feast day: August 27 (Memorial of St. Monica)
Patron of: Mothers, wives, and parents of children who have left the faith.
About St. Monica
St. Monica was born in 331 in North Africa and married a pagan official named Patricius, a man with a harsh temper. With patience and prayer she won him over, and he was baptized a year before he died. Her greatest sorrow was her brilliant eldest son Augustine, who rejected the faith, lived a worldly life, and joined a sect. Monica never stopped praying and weeping for him. A bishop, perhaps weary of her pleas, told her, "It is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish."
When Augustine left secretly for Rome and then Milan, Monica followed him. In Milan she found a friend and guide in St. Ambrose, and there, in 387, she saw her son baptized. Soon afterward, as they waited at Ostia to sail home to Africa, mother and son shared a conversation about the joys of heaven that Augustine describes beautifully in his Confessions. A few days later Monica fell ill. She asked only to be remembered at the altar of the Lord, wherever they were, and she died at fifty-six. Her feast on August 27 comes the day before her son's.
Prayers to St. Monica on Daily Catholic Prayers
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