Saint Monica, the Magnificent Mother

Today, the entire Church celebrates the beautiful memorial of St Monica, the Mother of St Augustine. Since, a mother can often be best described by her son, we turn to Saint Augustine, who offers us a very vivid description of God’s greatness in his mother Monica. She had to face two great challenges in her life as a wife and a mother, an unfaithful and unbelieving husband, and a child who, although she raised him in the Catholic faith, never was baptized and led his life the way he wanted. In his Confessions St Augustine shows us the inspiring character of his mum in trying to see her child Augustine one with Christ and his Church. He recounted:

My cleansing was therefore deferred on the pretext that if I lived I would inevitably soil myself again, for it was held that the guild of sinful defilement incurred after the laver of baptism was greater and more perilous. I was already a believer, as were my mother and all the household, with the exception of my father. He, however, did not overrule the influence my mother’s piety exercised over me, by making any attempt to stop me believing in Christ, in whom he did not at that time believe himself. My mother did all she could do to see that you, my God, should be more truly than my father was … (Confessions I, 11, 18).

Undeterred by the poor response she got from both of them, Monica kept hoping and praying to God until the doors of divine grace were open to save them. In the case of Augustine, Monica never approved his journey through other false religions. Hurt by her son’s wayward way of life and indulging more and more into sin and drifting away from Mother Church, one day she courageously talked to a priest and told him to guide her early adult son Augustine back to Christ’s fold, the Church. Later on in life Augustine left us the most beautiful description of this providential meeting in his Confessions when he wrote:

She pleaded all the more insistently and with free-flowing tears that he would consent to see me and discuss matters with me. A little vexed, he answered, ‘Go away now; but hold onto this: it is inconceivable that he should perish, a son of tears like yours.’ In her conversations with me [Augustine] later she often recalled that she had taken these words to be an oracle from Heaven (Confessions III, 12, 21).

As we know, Augustine went back to Jesus and the Church, became a priest, founded an institute of consecrated life and became one of the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church. How those tears of Monica were powerful and produced an abundant good fruit in front of God’s throne!

Commenting on the figure of St Monica during his Angelus address on Sunday 27 August 2006, Pope Benedict XVI said: How many difficulties there are also today in family relations and how many mothers are in anguish at seeing their children setting out on wrong paths! Monica, a woman whose faith was wise and sound, invites them not to lose heart but to persevere in their mission as wives and mothers, keeping firm their trust in God and clinging with perseverance to prayer. Also as Pope Francis said, it is intrinsic in the vocation of every mother to keep praying for her children on the example of St Monica until she sees them brought back to Christ’s guidance.

The Bible shows us the power for such a loving maternal heart which never gives up but keeps caring for her child. In the Book of Isaiah we find the following sentence which really fuels with hope, joy, courage, strength and love a mother whose child has been losing the right track in her and her life. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have graven you on the palms of my hands (Isa 49:15-16). Yes, the faithfulness in prayer with tears of a mother graves her child’s name on God’s palm hands as did exactly St Monica with her child Augustine.

Dear St. Monica, troubled wife and mother, many sorrows pierced your heart during your lifetime. Yet, you never despaired or lost faith. With confidence, persistence, and profound faith, you prayed daily for the conversion of your beloved husband, Patricius, and your beloved son, Augustine; your prayers were answered. Grant me that same fortitude, patience, and trust in the Lord. Intercede for me, dear St. Monica, that God may favorably hear my plea for (Mention your intention here.) and grant me the grace to accept His Will in all things, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

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