One of the greatest conversion stories in Christian history is that of St. Augustine, fifth-century African Bishop of Hippo in present-day Algeria. We find this story detailed in the most famous spiritual autobiography ever written—his Confessions. However, at the center of this story is St. Monica, the wandering sinner's prayerful mother. Augustine is the son of her many tears, which as Ambrose the holy bishop of Milan assured her, can never perish! Thankfully, she lived to see her son become a Catholic Christian before she died and thus went to her grave with tearful joy and holy contentment.
However, it is a mistake to reduce Monica's image to merely that of a prayer warrior—a woman of many prayerful tears. According to this popular portrait, Monica is presented as the patron of mothers with difficult children, usually with the hope that women would be encouraged by her story to pray fervently for their wayward children and never give up on them. Of course, being simply a prayerful Christian is a great thing, and in fact, it is more than enough! Indeed, in many places in the Confessions, Augustine emphasized this truth about Monica. Yet, he stressed equally in many places that Monica was more than simply a woman who persevered in prayer for his conversion and that of his ill-tempered father, Patricius. Reading the Confessions closely, we find the many other beautiful sides of his beloved mother.
In book 9, Augustine details two conversations he had with his mother, a few days before the latter departed this life. Shortly before she fell sick, she had said to Augustine: “What am I still to do here and why I am here I know not, now that I no longer hope for anything from this world. One thing there was, for which I desired to remain still a little longer in this life, that I should see you a Catholic Christian before I died. This God has granted me in superabundance, in that I now see you his servant to the contempt of all worldly happiness. What then am I doing here?” And shortly before she died, she said to Augustine and his brother, who was very anxious that his beloved mother would die in a foreign land: “Lay this body wherever it may be. Let no care of it disturb you: this only I ask of you that you should remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you are.”
What we see in these two conversations is a woman who radically embodied the Christian worldview. She was defiant in the face of death, knowing that anyone who believes in Christ will live forever (John 11:25). She was filled with Christian hope in life, resurrection and immortality. For her, what matters is neither how nor where someone is buried. Instead, it is the resurrection of the just. According to her, “Nothing is far from God, and I have no fear that He will not know at the end of the world from what place He is to raise me up.” She was crazy about the Eucharist till the end. As to Augustine, no day passed without Monica attending the sacrifice of the Mass. Nothing was more important to her than to be remembered at the Eucharistic altar even after death. She was unconcerned about the cares of this world. At this point, it is essential to highlight the nature of her concern for Augustine. Her concern was not that Augustine becomes successful according to the standard of the world. Rather, it was that Augustine should also become successful according to the standard of Christ and his Church. As Augustine puts it, “she was ever in deep travail for my salvation.” And when Augustine finally got converted, “she was filled with triumphant exultation.”
Augustine does not, therefore, spare words in praise of his mother. She brought him forth to this world's temporal light, and in her heart, brought him forth to light eternal. She was a woman who embodied the discipline of the Christian life from her earliest years. She was full of wise counsels. And her wise counsels remained with Augustine even through the depth of his depravity. Two, in particular, kept Augustine for straying too irretrievably. First, she urged him not to sin with women and, above all, with any man's wife. In all his philandering, Augustine was at least careful to avoid adultery. Also, she so instilled the name of Christ firmly on his infant mind, that Augustine would recount, "whatever lacked that name, no matter how learned and excellently written and true, could not win me wholly.”
This does not mean that she was perfect. For instance, Augustine tells us how she fell into the habit of drunkenness and how it took the insult of her small mistress, calling her a drunkard, to break off the habit. In this, as well as in her entire life, Augustine saw the power of God’s grace at work. His parents’ life, as well as his own, were his crucial lessons on God's grace. Augustine mostly learned that "nothing whatever pertaining to godliness and holiness can be accomplished without grace."
We are right to call Augustine the Doctor of Grace. His theology of grace is his biggest legacy to the Church. But can we henceforth endeavor to always note that it was his mother Monica taught him, by words of her mouth and life example, to always trust in God’s grace?
Happy Feast day to all praying mothers. The children of your tears will prosper spiritually as well as temporally. Amen.
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