The Power of a Mother’s Prayer

by Admin · May 12, 2024

St Augustine and his mother, St Monica

Fr Enrico Parry: Point of Reflection –

Praying is for the tough. It really is not as easy as “with God I can scale any wall”, as the psalmist sings.

There was a mother whose teenage son drove her mad beyond imagining, as teenagers often do. She went to a priest, as mothers often do, and listened with tears in her eyes as he related the story of another mother who had spent many years praying for her wayward son.

That mother’s boy went from bad to worse as her prayers went unanswered. The boy’s father decided to offer him a gap year after school — to take him out of the bad environment he was in before going off to university in the big city. The mother kept on praying, visiting holy places and gathering the advice of many holy priests and bishops.

The gap year saw the boy falling head over heels in love with a beautiful girl, and before you knew it, he had fathered a child, but he was too young to take her hand in marriage. A bishop told the boy’s poor mother that a child for whom so many tears were shed can never stay lost. She kept on praying.

Prayers for unhappy son

Her son grew up and kind of made it in life, by our standards, earning good money since he was a bright boy, well, a bright man by now. Yet for all his learning and earning, he wasn’t a happy man. And his mother kept up her prayers. She also did what mothers sometimes do – she stopped cooking for him. And her prayers for him went unanswered.

The young man mocked her church ways and childlike faith, believing it was not for him. After his father’s death, he emigrated to the bright lights, escaping his nagging mother. Or so he thought. The old lady eventually caught up with him. Slowly he developed doubts about his ways and beliefs. But only slowly. And his mother kept on praying.

He began to realise how strong his mother’s faith was, how far advanced she was, way ahead of him in life and wisdom. And because nothing in this life lasts forever, eventually the dam wall broke. He and his son as well as his best friend were baptised and received into the church one Easter Vigil.

God’s own timing

And his mother knew that her prayers actually had never gone unanswered. God just had his own schedule. His timing wasn’t hers. It always looked so dark and lonely, as if God was slumbering and sleeping. Yet she never stopped praying. She was Monica. Aunt Monica. St Monica. That boy of hers, a saint too by her prayers, was Augustine. St Augustine.

And that first mother with the difficult teenager, who had been ready to throw in the towel, knew she had a new and certain inspiration in St Monica, a new ally in heaven. Like Aaron and Hur keeping up Moses’ arms in prayer! For the Lord sleeps not nor slumbers. When the Son of Man comes, he will find faith like St Monica’s, a mother’s faith.

I, too, take courage and I can continue a little stronger, for our mothers are here with us.

Fr Encrico Parry is a priest of the diocese of Oudtshoorn. This article first appeared on the Imbisa website.