St. Monica's Prayer Group

There is a prayer group at the Annunciation of the Lord Parish in Ottawa devoted to St. Monica. Many Catholics pray daily for family members who are away from the Church. This is why this group was started a couple of years ago – for people to pray for their loved ones.

St. Monica prayed for 17 years for the conversion of her son St. Augustine. Her prayers were answered and St. Augustine is now one of the Church's most influential Christian theologians and is also a Doctor of the church.

If St. Monica can do this with prayers for her son, so can we.

Every day after Mass the group prays the St. Monica prayer before a picture of St. Monica, which the group places underneath a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This is a beautiful and fruitful devotion that any congregation can incorporate into their own parish life. And it only takes a few minutes to say the suggested prayers.

The prayers begin with the St. Michael prayer, Our Lady of Guadalupe pray for us, then the St. Monica prayer, then the Memorare to our Blessed Mother. Finally the group says a prayer for priests, with a different prayer every day from different saints (all the prayers are shown here at this link):

1... Monday - Thérèse of the Child Jesus, of the Holy Face

2…Tuesday - Pope Benedict XVI

3... Wednesday - St. Teresa of Calcutta

4… Thursday - St. Faustina (from her Diary)

5… Friday - St. John Vianney

6… Saturday - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

7… Sunday - Cardinal Justin Rigali

St. Monica pray for us! St. Augustine pray for us!

Members of the group made the following two pilgrimages recently:

Pilgrimage from Our Lady of Grace Grotto of the Parish to Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto in Vanier.

Pilgrimage to St. Joseph's oratory the St. Monica's prayer group did a couple of weeks ago. 

Thanks to Maureen for the pictures and videos of the two pilgrimages.