Memorial of Saint Monica

First Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 145:2-3, 4-5, 6-7

Gospel: Matthew 24:42-51

Daily readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082726.cfm

Jesus tells his disciples: stay awake. You do not know on which day your Lord will come. The faithful servant is the one found doing his work when the master returns — giving the household their food at the proper time. The unfaithful servant is the one who decides the master is delayed and starts cutting corners, treating people carelessly, living as if no one is watching and nothing matters. The question underneath the parable is simple: what are you doing while you wait?

Today the Church remembers Monica, the mother of Augustine — and no one in the history of Christianity has answered that question more quietly or more completely than she did. Monica waited seventeen years for her son’s conversion. She watched him leave the faith, take a mistress, join a heretical sect, pursue worldly ambition through Carthage and Rome and Milan. And she prayed. She wept. A bishop told her: the child of those tears shall never perish. She held on to those words. She did not stop giving the household their food at the proper time. She was found doing exactly that — faithfully, without seeing the end from the middle — when the Lord finally came.

Paul writes to the Corinthians: you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep you firm to the end. God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son. Monica believed that. She believed it when Augustine was not living it. She believed it when she could not see the evidence. That is what staying awake looks like in real life — not high drama, but faithful presence, patient prayer, love that does not give up on the people we are waiting with.

A few questions to sit with today:

1. What am I doing while I wait — for an answer to a prayer, for someone I love to come around, for something in my own life to change? Am I staying awake and faithful, or have I quietly started to drift?

2. Monica prayed for seventeen years without seeing the fruit. Is there someone in my family or my life I have been praying for — and am I tempted to give up? What would it look like to keep going?

3. The faithful servant gives the household their food at the proper time. What is my household — family, friends, people in my care — and am I giving them what they need from me right now?

4. God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son. Do I actually trust that God is faithful even in the season I am in right now, even without visible evidence?

One small thing for tomorrow:

Think of one person you have been carrying in prayer for a long time — someone whose situation has not changed yet. Tomorrow, say a brief prayer for them by name, and tell God: I am still here. I am not giving up. That is Monica’s prayer. It is enough.

Lord Jesus, Monica stayed awake for seventeen years, giving her household their food at the proper time, faithful in a season that showed her nothing but closed doors. I want to be that kind of faithful — not because I can see the outcome, but because I trust you are working even when I cannot see it. Help me not to drift when the waiting is long. Help me to keep praying for the people I love who have not come home yet. May Saint Monica’s intercession keep me patient, and may your faithfulness carry me to the end. Amen.

If you would like to share: is there someone you have been praying for through a long wait — someone whose story is still unfinished?