It matters that Matt Talbot was not a priest or a mystic. He was a hod carrier who took the pledge for three months because he had run out of money and friends, and then kept taking it.
Historical Context
Monica’s husband Patricius was, by her son Augustine’s own account, bad-tempered and unfaithful. She prayed for him for years with no visible result, and he was baptised shortly before he died. That story is the reason she is invoked here rather than a saint with an easier life: she is a patron of long waiting, not of quick answers.
Prayer to Saint Monica for a Husband Who Drinks
Saint Monica,
you loved a difficult man for years
and did not stop asking God for him.
Pray for my husband, who cannot put it down.
Pray for me, that I do not grow hard,
or lie to myself about what is happening,
or lose the person I was before this began.
Obtain for us both the grace of a real change,
and the patience to live until it comes.
Amen.
Prayer to Venerable Matt Talbot
Matt Talbot,
you know the hold drink takes
and you know it can be broken,
because it was broken in you.
Intercede for my husband.
Ask that he be given one clear hour
in which he can see it plainly,
and the courage to act while he still can.
Amen.
A prayer for the wife herself
This is the one most often left out of pages like this, and it is usually the one most needed.
Lord,
I have prayed for him so long that I have forgotten to ask for anything for myself.
Give me clear sight about what I can change and what I cannot.
Give me people I can tell the truth to.
Keep me from believing that this is my fault,
or that loving him means pretending.
Watch over my children.
And when I have done what I can do, let me rest.
Amen.
Best Times for This Prayer
- At night, when he is out and you do not know where.
- Before a conversation you have been putting off.
- After a promise has been broken again.
- On 27 August, Saint Monica’s feast.
- When you are deciding whether to stay, and need to be honest rather than afraid.
Scripture Connection
“Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.” — Psalm 55:22
Psalm 55 is a strange and useful psalm for this, because the betrayal in it is not by an enemy but by a close friend — “we used to take sweet counsel together.” The psalmist does not pretend to be serene about it. He says he would like to fly away and be at rest. Then he casts the burden anyway. Both halves are in the text.
Prayer is not the only thing to do
Al-Anon exists for the families of alcoholics, is free, and is in most towns. Many people find it alongside their faith rather than instead of it, and Catholic in Recovery runs groups for those who want both together.
And a plainer point that belongs on this page: praying for someone does not oblige you to stay somewhere unsafe. Saint Monica prayed for her husband for decades; nothing in her story asks a woman to accept violence. If you or your children are in danger, act on that first, and pray afterwards.
Related prayers
If he has begun recovery, or might, the twelve-step prayers are the ones he will meet first — the Third Step Prayer and the Set Aside Prayer. The Resentment Prayer is for you as much as for him, and is worth reading even if he never picks it up.
Saint Monica’s son wrote the Saint Augustine prayers — he spent years as the cause of her praying before he became its answer.
