ST Monica, born in 331 AD in Tagaste, a small town in North Africa, is a witness to the enduring power of motherly love.
Her son Augustine was born in 354 AD and, despite being raised by a Christian mother, quickly drifted away from her teachings.
By his late teens, Augustine was living in Carthage, fully indulging in a hedonistic lifestyle, something he would later describe with remorse.
“I went to Carthage,” he wrote in his book, Confessions, “where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lust.”
Monica was heartbroken but undeterred.
She prayed incessantly for his conversion, following him wherever his restless spirit took him.
Augustine moved to Rome in 383 AD and later to Milan, where he was influenced by the sermons of Bishop Ambrose.
But even then, Augustine was torn between his earthly desires and the call of God.
Monica joined Augustine in Milan in 385 AD, and her prayers intensified.
Augustine himself recalled, “She wept for me, more than mothers weep over the death of their children.”
Augustine began to feel the emptiness of his life and the weight of his sins.
In his Confessions, Augustine describes the moment of his conversion in 386 AD.
He was in a garden, tormented by his internal struggle, when he heard a child’s voice chanting, “Tolle, lege” (“Take up and read”).
He opened the Scriptures and read, “Let us walk properly, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Romans 13:13-14).
This passage struck him with such force that he resolved to abandon his former life and fully embrace the Christian faith.
Augustine was baptised by St Ambrose in Milan on Easter of 387 AD.
His mother Monica was overjoyed, she had waited so long for that day.
Shortly after, Monica fell ill, and as she lay on her deathbed in Ostia, she expressed her readiness to depart to her son, saying, “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?”
Monica died in 387 AD, at the age of 56, her heart finally at peace, knowing that her son had found his way to God.
Augustine went on to become one of the greatest theologians and saints of the Church, dedicating much of his life to the God his mother had loved so dearly.
In later years, Augustine never forgot the role his mother played in his journey.
He wrote, “If I am thy child, O God, it is because thou gavest me such a mother.”
Monica’s love and prayers were the bedrock of Augustine’s conversion, showing that the persistent, faith-filled prayers of a mother can move even the hardest hearts.
St Monica and St Augustine are now celebrated together, on feast days side by side yesterday and today on August 27 and 28.
