The life of Saint Monica

"The child of those tears shall never perish."

Saint Monica
Benozzo Gozzoli (fresco - 1464-65)
Apsidal chapel, Sant'Agostino, San Gimignano

 

Monica, a saint especially revered by mothers because of her tireless prayers for the conversion of her wayward son, Augustine, was born of Christian parents in Tagaste, North Africa in 333, and died in Ostia, near Rome, in 387. She was married young to a government official, Patricius, who was not a Christian, and had a bad temper, though she bore her burdens patiently, and their life together was relatively peaceful. They had three children;  Augustine, Navigius, and a daughter, Perpetua.

Augustine, the eldest son, though brilliant, was, according to his own account, a lazy and dissolute youth whose bad behaviour caused his mother much grief ­ especially so after he went away to school at Madaura and to Carthage. Although her husband Patricius became a Christian not long before he died, Augustine persisted in his pursuit of pleasure, and, as a nineteen-year-old student, joined the heretical Manichaean sect. When he began to spout heresies, Monica became alarmed, and intensified her prayers to bring him to Christ. In his writings ‘the Confessions’, Augustine recounts Monica's dream which consoled and encouraged her:

"In her dream she saw herself standing on a sort of wooden rule, and saw a bright youth approaching her, joyous and smiling at her, while she was grieving and bowed down with sorrow. But when he inquired of her the cause of her sorrow and daily weeping (not to learn from her, but to teach her, as is customary in visions), and when she answered that it was my soul's doom she was lamenting, he bade her rest content and told her to look and see that where she was there I was also. And when she looked she saw me standing near her on the same rule." (Confessions, Book III, 9.14). 

During this anguished period of prayer for her son, Monica consulted a bishop who had himself been a Manichaean before he became a Christian. He declined to intervene with Augustine, whom, the bishop correctly observed, was not open to hearing the truth. She persisted tearfully, but he refused to intervene. Nevertheless, the bishop consoled Monica that "the child of those tears shall never perish", which she took as a sign from God. Though he continued in his heresies for nine years, Monica followed Augustine to Rome and then to Milan in an effort to rescue her son from his errors. In Milan she met Ambrose, who helped lead Augustine into the true faith. 

Monica did not live long after Augustine's baptism. They had already decided to return to Africa. After a time in Ostia, near Rome, while waiting for passage to Africa, Augustine tells of the moving spiritual experience they shared as they sat at the window overlooking the garden. It was here that Monica expressed the profound peace she enjoyed and her conviction that her life's task had been completed. Very shortly afterward, she fell ill with a fever. She died two days later and was buried at Ostia. Friends told Augustine that she would not grieve over dying and being buried in a foreign land, and she had added, with a touch of humour, that she was sure God would remember where she was buried and raise her up. She had previously told Augustine and his brother Navigius: "Lay this body anywhere, and take no trouble over it. One thing only do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be."   Augustine was so deeply moved by his mother's death that he was inspired to write his Confessions, "So be fulfilled what my mother desired of me - more richly in the prayers of so many gained for her through these confessions of mine than by my prayers alone" (Confessions, Book IX, 13.37)

Centuries later, Monica's body was reburied in Rome, and eventually her relics were interred in a chapel left of the high altar of the Church of St. Augustine in Rome. 

Prayer to St Monica

Saint Monica, patron of Christian parents, we entrust to your protection, the children whose names you can read in our hearts. Pray for them, that they may be granted strength to combat weakness, victory over temptation, guidance to resolve their doubts, and success in all their undertakings.

May they enjoy good health of mind and body, see beauty and worth in all created things, and serve the Lord with firm faith, joyful hope and enduring love.  We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.