ST. MONICA (AUG. 27TH)

 

St. Monica, Praying for the Conversion of Her Son

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

St. Monica (332-387) was born of Christian African Berber stock, married a pagan Roman nobleman named Patricius, and had three children, Augustin, Navigius and Perpetua. Patricius was unfaithful and abusive, and refused to allow his children to be baptized. Monica grieved in this dysfunctional relationship and committed herself to prayer and fasting for her husband and children. Through her asceticism, Patricius learned to respect his wife, although he would only convert to the One True Faith in the year before he died. 

Augustine converted to Manicheanism when he was 17 and studied law and oration in Carthage and in Rome. He lived a dissolute life along the pattern of his father, taking a concubine and living in impurity and gluttony. When he secretly went to Rome to pursue a career in law after his father died, his mother Monica followed him, so that she could continue to witness of the Gospel to him and continue to be in his life. She always held to a word spoken to her by her spiritual father, a bishop in Carthage, who said, “A child born of tears is never lost.” Monica was the first to befriend St. Ambrose of Milan and introduce him to her son. It was this relationship through which Augustine would eventually replace his carnal, sinful father-figure with the holy, resolute and theologically Orthodox person of St. Ambrose. Thus, St. Monica cried and prayed for Augustine’s conversion for the next 17 years, cultivating deep relationships with the Christian sisters in Milan and serving the Church under St. Ambrose. 

St. Monica and St. Augustine in Prayerful Contemplation

Upon his conversion, St. Augustine quickly became a leader in the Christian community, wrote many important works of theology, began his ministry under St. Ambrose’s watchful care, and later started a monastery. St. Monica and his sister, Perpetua, joined him in a house for women not far from the house established for men. Until the end of St. Monica’s life, she lived close to her son, attending the liturgies that he celebrated, and testifying of the goodness and faithfulness of God. 

St. Monica Receiving Angelic Consolation in Prayer

When she died, she was quickly recognized as a saintly example of patience and long-suffering, and became an icon of faithful Christian women in unhappy relationships, redeeming their family through love, a pure witness, and faithfulness to the Gospel of Christ.

St. Monica, pray for us!

The Final Resting Place of St. Monica