Pope prays at tomb of St. Monica on her feast day

ROME (CNS) — Pope Francis marked the feast of St. Monica by leaving the Vatican unannounced to pray at her tomb in the Rome basilica named after her son, St. Augustine.

The afternoon of Aug. 27, “the memorial of St. Monica, Pope Francis went to St. Augustine’s Church in Rome, and paused in prayer in the chapel where the saint’s remains are kept and later before the image of Our Lady of the Pilgrims,” a painting by Caravaggio, the Renaissance master, the Vatican press office said.

On his way out, the Vatican’s Aug. 27 statement said, “he greeted the (Augustinian) friars, nuns and pilgrims present and then returned to the Vatican.”

Pope Francis did the same on St. Monica’s feast day in 2020 and 2018.

During his Angelus address in 2023 on the feast of St. Augustine, a day after his mother’s feast, Pope Francis praised St. Monica who, “with her prayers and her tears,” asked the Lord for the conversion of her son.

She was “a strong woman, a good woman,” the pope said. “Let us pray for the many mothers who suffer when their children are a little lost or who find themselves on difficult paths in life.”

In a homily in 2013, the pope, who as a cardinal would visit the basilica during trips to Rome to pray at the tomb of St. Monica, said St. Augustine must have learned to love God and others from his mother.

“How many tears that holy woman shed for the conversion of her son. And how many mothers today shed tears that their children would return to Christ,” Pope Francis said. “Don’t lose hope in the grace of God.”

Like St. Monica, he said, Christians are called to love others to the point of shedding tears for their well-being and salvation.