26/08/2026
ST. MONICA
Feast day: August 27
“If I am a child of God, O God, it is because You gave me such a mother." (St. Augustine)
St. Monica, the famous mother of St. Augustine, was born in 332 in Tagaste, northern Africa. She was brought up as a good Christian. Her strong training was a great help to her when she married the pagan Patricius. Patricius admired his wife, but he made her suffer because of his bad temper. Still Monica never answered back and never complained about him to anyone. Instead she prayed for him fervently. Furthermore, her mother-in-law was against her and put her into great troubles.
St. Monica bore three children: Augustine, the eldest; Navigius, the second, and a daughter, Perpetua. Monica had been unable to secure baptism for her children, and her grief was great when Augustine fell ill. In her distress she besought her husband to allow him to be baptized; he agreed, but on the boy's recovery withdrew his consent.
However, St. Monica attended church daily and cultivated the virtue of patience. She prayed for 30 years for the conversion of her pagan husband. Her example and prayer finally paid off, as her husband admitted his belief in Christianity in 371, a year before his death. He was baptized on his deathbed in 372. His mother, too, became a Christian.
St. Monica's joy over the holy way in which her husband had died soon changed to great sorrow. She found out that her son Augustine was living a bad, selfish life. This brilliant young man of nineteen had turned to a false religion and to immoral habits. Monica prayed and cried and did much penance for her son. She begged priests to talk to him. St. Monica had a strange vision which urged her to recall him. It was at this time that she went to see a certain holy bishop who consoled her with the now famous words, "the child of those tears shall never perish."
Augustine was brilliant, yet very stubborn. He did not want to give up his sinful life. But Monica would not give up either. When he went to Rome without her, she followed him. At Rome, she found he had become a teacher in Milan. So Monica went to Milan. And in all those years, she never stopped praying for him. What love and faith! After years of prayers and tears, her reward came when Augustine was converted. After seventeen years of resistance, Augustine yielded to the ministering of St. Ambrose and was baptized by him in the church of St. John the Baptist in Milan at the age of 28, on Easter Eve in 387.
Before her death Monica had the great joy of knowing that Augustine had returned to God and also that her daughter Perpetua had become a nun.
From the Confessions of Saint Augustine:
The day was now approaching when my mother Monica would depart from this life; you knew that day, Lord, though we did not. She and I happened to be standing by ourselves at a window that overlooked the garden in the courtyard of the house. At the time we were in Ostia on the Tiber. We had gone there after a long and wearisome journey to get away from the noisy crowd, and to rest and prepare for our sea voyage. I believe that you, Lord, caused all this to happen in your own mysterious ways. And so the two of us, all alone, were enjoying a very pleasant conversation, forgetting the past and pushing on to what is ahead. We were asking one another in the presence of the Truth–for you are the Truth–what it would be like to share the eternal life enjoyed by the saints, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, which has not even entered into the heart of man. We desired with all our hearts to drink from the streams of your heavenly fountain, the fountain of life.
That was the substance of our talk, though not the exact words. But you know, O Lord, that in the course of our conversation that day, the world and its pleasures lost all their attraction for us. My mother said: “Son, as far as I am concerned, nothing in this life now gives me any pleasure. I do not know why I am still here, since I have no further hopes in this world. I did have one reason for wanting to live a little longer: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died. God has lavished his gifts on me in that respect, for I know that you have even renounced earthly happiness to be his servant. So what am I doing here?”
I do not really remember how I answered her. Shortly, within five days or thereabouts, she fell sick with a fever. Then one day during the course of her illness she became unconscious and for a while she was unaware of her surroundings. My brother and I rushed to her side but she regained consciousness quickly. She looked at us as we stood there and asked in a puzzled voice: “Where was I?”
We were overwhelmed with grief, but she held her gaze steadily upon us and spoke further: “Here you shall bury your mother.” I remained silent as I held back my tears. However, my brother haltingly expressed his hope that she might not die in a strange country but in her own land, since her end would be happier there. When she heard this, her face was filled with anxiety, and she reproached him with a glance because he had entertained such earthly thoughts. Then she looked at me and spoke: “Look what he is saying.” Thereupon she said to both of us: “Bury my body wherever you will; let not care of it cause you any concern. One thing only I ask you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” Once our mother had expressed this desire as best she could, she fell silent as the pain of her illness increased.
Augustine not only became a good Christian, as she had prayed. Augustine also became a priest, a bishop, a great writer and a very famous saint.
St. Monica is the Patron of wives, abuse victims, difficult marriages, disappointing children, victims of adultery or unfaithfulness, victims of (verbal) abuse, widows, and conversion of relatives.
🙏PRAYER:
O God, who console the sorrowful and who mercifully accepted the motherly tears of Saint Monica for the conversion of her son Augustine, grant us, through the intercession of them both, that we may bitterly regret our sins and find the grace of your pardon. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
St. Monica, who persevered in prayer and teaches us to love without limit, pray for us!
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Sources:
(1) Franciscan Media: Saint of the Day - Saint Monica
(2) Catholic Online | Saints & Angels
Photo: ctto
