St. Monica - Feast Day August 27

St. Monica (331 AD – 387 AD) 

Feast Day: August 27

St. Monica is the mother of St. Augustine. She always reminds me of a faithful mother who can never bear the thought of her son, the child who has issued forth from her womb, suffering eternal damnation because of his rejection of the Gospel. This painful truth makes her cry and weep intensely. She visits St. Ambrose repeatedly to petition him to intervene in her son’s case. Finally, St. Ambrose famously responds, “woman the child of those tears will never perish” (Confessions, III, 12).  

For 20 years she continues praying, crying and imploring God to save her son. This sentiment embodies the perfect love of a mother and the sweet maternal instinct in a woman who has set her priorities straight. 

It is good for a mother to offer food and other necessities to her children, but their eternal destiny comes first and foremost. It is more important than even the children’s life on this earth. Out of her loving concern for her rebellious son, she travels to Rome, then Milan. 

After her son is baptized into the Catholic Church, she speaks these words to St. Augustine, “Son, for myself, I have no longer any pleasure in anything in this life. What I want here further, and why I am here, I know not, now that my hopes in this world are satisfied. There was indeed one thing for which I wished to tarry a little in this life, and that was that I might see you a Catholic Christian before I died. My God has exceeded this abundantly, so that I see you despising all earthly felicity, made His servant—what do I here?” (Confessions IX, 10).  

Shortly after, she fell ill, and on her deathbed, she says to her two sons, “Lay this body anywhere, let not the care for it trouble you at all. This only I ask, that you will remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you be” (Confessions IX, 11).