Hilltop Farm: Feast Day: St. Monica (mother of St. Augustine)

Today is the feast of St. Monica (322-387). She is remembered as St. Augustine's mother ... a mother who prayed constantly for 30 some years for her son to convert from his evil ways and turn to God and His Church.

Here is a very cool three-day novena I found that we will start praying today ... and for the next two days ... to help pray for all our freinds,r elatives and benefactors who are fallen-away Catholics or luke-warm Catholics and for non-Catholics; we will also pray that there may one day be unity amongst all Christians under the one true Church:

TRIDUUM (THREE-DAY) NOVENA in HONOR of ST. MONICA

For an INCREASE of FAITH, HOPE and CHARITY

This Three-Day Novena may be begin three days before or on the feast days of St. Monica August 27, St. Augustine - August 28, St. Augustine's birthday - November 13, St. Augustine's Baptism - April 24

St. Monica, pray for us

FIRST DAY -- Prayer for Faith

O glorious St. Monica, transfixed with sorrow when you saw your beloved child Augustine living in the dark and gloomy abyss of error and vice, and straying far from the right path which leads to true felicity in the possession of God and His holy grace, hear our prayer, O afflicted mother. By that cruel sorrow, which with so much patience you did bear, and by those earnest sighs and bitter tears with which you did appeal to God to change the heart of your prodigal son, and by your wondrous confidence in God, which was never shaken, O grant to us, your children, that we may, like you, place all our trust in God, and in our trials and troubles be ever resigned to His holy will. While we ask you, O glorious mother St. Monica, to supply for us our special needs, we here earnestly ask you to pray for the erring children of Jesus, so many Augustines, straying from God and hurrying to ruin. Let that earnest prayer of yours go forth once more for us and for sinners, that we may live in the light of divine grace and be united again thereafter to bless the bounty of a loving God for eternity. Amen.

LET US PRAY. O God, look graciously down upon Your children who sigh in this valley of tears. With hope we pray for our daily bread, for the forgiveness of our sins, for the never-failing help of Your grace, and for the faithful fulfillment of Your promises: to find life everlasting and a happy abode with You in heaven, through the merits of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer.

May God, through the merits and intercession of Saint Monica, increase our faith, strengthen our hope, and enkindle the fire of charity in our hearts. Amen.

Our Father . . . Hail Mary . . . Glory Be. . . Saint Monica, pray for us.

SECOND DAY -- Prayer for Hope

O glorious mother, St. Monica, although the many means you employed to accomplish the conversion of your son Augustine seemed fruitless, and for a long time God Himself appeared deaf to your earnest prayer and unmoved by your ever-flowing tears, you never lost confidence in obtaining the long-sought grace for Augustine. You lovingly and tenderly admonished your erring son; you watched over him ever with all a mother's love, and fearless of danger and heedless of fatigue, followed him from place to place in his weary and wayward wanderings. In a word, all that a mother's tender love could suggest, all that a mother's anxious solicitude could inspire, all that a wondrous prudence and true wisdom could dictate, you, O great St. Monica, cheerfully did to effect the return to God of your firstborn and darling child. By all these generous efforts, so happily crowned in the end, hear, O mother, the petitions we make to you. Pray for us, too, and pray especially for those who are unmindful of and ungrateful to God. To you, O dearest mother, we are especially dedicated; look upon us, then, as your children, and win for us the grace we need. Regard mercifully the most destitute among us, that sin being diminished, the number of the faithful may increase, and greater glory may be given to Him who is the best of friends, the truest of benefactors, our first beginning and last end, the source of all our hope, our Savior, our God. Amen.

May God, through the merits and intercession of Saint Monica, increase our faith, strengthen our hope, and enkindle the fire of charity in our hearts. Amen.

Our Father . . . Hail Mary . . . Glory Be . . . Saint Monica, pray for us.

THIRD DAY -- Prayer for Charity

O glorious mother St. Monica who can conceive the consolation that abounded in your heart, so long the home of brooding sorrow, when you saw your child Augustine rising in the light of grace and giving himself generously to God. When you folded your converted son in your arms and tears of every joy streamed forth to tell the glowing jubilee of your heart, Oh, how in that moment God in his mercy recompensed your years of sorrow and anxiety, your long and weary days of racking suspense. It was impossible that a child of tears like yours should perish and when your son Augustine heard the call of God he obeyed it, and his life and his deeds flung a luster all their own on you, St. Monica. O fortunate mother, twice mother of your child, deign to listen to our prayers and present our petitions to God. Look lovingly, and with all a mother's interest on us assembled here, under your protection, to honor you. We love you and let us become, as St. Augustine of old, the objects of your maternal love. Pray that we, too, like St. Augustine, may have strength to cling to God, and triumph over sin and temptation. By your prayers break the fetters of sin that hold in cruel bondage the souls of your sinful children in this world. O mother, pray that the miracle of grace in the heart of Augustine may again and again be repeated in these day of universal sin, and that the erring children of Jesus may be led back to the fold so that united here on earth, we may securely go through the dangers of life and be united with you, our mother, in heaven forever. Amen

May God, through the merits and intercession of Saint Monica, increase our faith, strengthen our hope, and enkindle the fire of charity in our hearts. Amen.

Our Father. . . Hail Mary . . . Glory Be . . .

Saint Monica, pray for us.