Lay faithful

St. Monica

Saint Monica was born about 331 at Thagaste in North Africa, now Souk Ahras in Algeria, into a Christian family. She was given in marriage to Patricius, a town councillor whose temper and pagan beliefs tested her for years; by her patience and gentleness she won his heart to the faith before his death. Her son Augustine, gifted and restless, drifted into a dissolute life and into heretical teaching, and for nearly seventeen years his mother wept and prayed for him, following him to Rome and then to Milan without ever ceasing to hope. In Milan she was comforted by the preaching of Saint Ambrose and by a promise that the son of so many tears could not perish. She took her place among the women who devoted themselves to prayer, and travelled with Augustine to Ostia, where the two of them stood together at a window and spoke of the eternal life of the saints. There, a few days later in 387, she fell ill and died, asking only that her son remember her at the altar of the Lord. Her long perseverance has made her a refuge for mothers and for every family still waiting on God, and her memory is kept on 27 May.

Patronage · Mothers; married women