Saints | Monica, mother of Augustine of Hippo | 1 Samuel 1:9-18 | Ps 121 | 1 Timothy 5:3-5 | Luke 7:11-17 | 27 August 2026

O God who hears the mother’s cry

1. 
O God who hears the mother’s cry,
in Hannah’s plea of old,
you strengthened Monica to stand
with faith serene and bold.
Through desert heat and coastal winds,
through Ireland’s rain‑soft years,
you held her hope, and gathered up
her long, unceasing tears.

2. 
You are the shade at weary noon,
the guard of every way;
you kept her steps through night and storm
and lit her dawn each day.
From Hippo’s shore to distant paths
where pilgrim hearts belong,
you watched her vigil, teaching her
your steadfast, saving song.

3. 
You honour those whose lives are shaped
by mercy’s quiet art;
and Monica, in widow’s grace,
bore love’s unbroken heart.
She prayed for sons, for wandering souls,
for peace none else could see;
and in her care the Church still learns
a holy constancy.

4.
As once you raised the widow’s child
beside the Nainward gate,
you lifted Monica’s deep grief
and taught her how to wait.
For Christ restores what sorrow breaks
and dries the tears we shed;
and through her trust we glimpse the hope
that wakes the living dead.

5.
From North Africa’s sun‑struck earth
to Ireland’s mist‑bound fields,
her witness travels, sowing faith
that blooms where patience yields.
O God of mothers, guard our steps,
our doubts and days and years;
and shape in us the steadfast love
you held through widow’s tears.

On Writing a Hymn for Monica

Sometimes writing a hymn feels like entering someone else’s long, patient prayer. Working with Monica’s story—her North African light, her years of waiting, her stubborn hope—I found myself slowing down, almost instinctively, as though her steadiness asked for a different kind of attention. Not rushed. Not tidy. Just honest.

The Scriptures that shaped the hymn—Hannah’s quiet plea, the keeper of our steps in Psalm 121, the honour given to widows, the compassion at Nain—all carry a kind of neurodivergent resonance. They make space for the person who feels too much, who prays in fragments, who keeps going even when the world doesn’t see the cost. Monica’s tears were not a failure of faith; they were part of her faith. A sensory truth. A bodily truth.

As I wrote, I kept thinking about how landscapes hold emotion. The heat of North Africa where Monica walked, the mist‑soft fields of Ireland where her story is remembered—both places know something about endurance. Both places teach us that hope is rarely loud. It is more like shade at noon, or a small path kept open through years of weather.

And maybe that’s the gift Monica offers to neurodivergent hearts: permission to pray the way we actually pray. Not neatly. Not always confidently. But persistently, with the kind of love that keeps showing up even when the outcome is unclear. A love that trusts God to gather the tears we don’t know how to name.

Writing the hymn reminded me that God honours this kind of prayer. The slow prayer. The sensory prayer. The prayer that feels like walking a long road with no map, yet still believing that dawn will come.

Hymn information

First line: O God who hears the mother’s cry
Text: Michael McFarland Campbell
Metre: DCM
Tune:
Theme: Monica, mother of Augustine of Hippo
Scripture: 1 Samuel 1:9-18, Ps121, 1 Timothy 5:3-5, Luke 7:11-17

© Michael McFarland Campbell. 2026. 
Permission granted for local church or parish use with attribution. Not for commercial reproduction.