Mother Knows Best

The 27th was the feast of St. Monica (left) & today is the feast of St. Augustine of Hippo. For those who are unfamiliar with it, St. Monica's story is 1 of what prayer can accomplish if you are willing to continue even when God seems silent, not for days, not for weeks, but even for years & YEARS & YEARS.

St. Monica was born c 332 AD at Tagaste (Souk Ahrus), Algeria. She was born into a Christian family. As a child she developed a strong addiction to wine. But when finally confronted with her wine-bibbing, she stopped drinking except for tiny amount diluted with water at certain events. She was married to Patricius. He was a pagan with a violent temper who also had no love for Christianity. She remained patient & lived out her faith as a witness to him. A year before Patricius died he converted to Christianity.

The couple had 3 children, Navigius, (all reports say that, unlike Augustine, he led an exemplary life), Augustine (right), and Perpetua, the only daughter, who became a religious. Augustine was born 13 November, 354. Patricius refused Monica's pleas to have the children baptised. But she did see that they received a Christian education. While he had a brilliant mind, he was wayward & lazy. At about aged 17 he went to Cathage to continue his education. There he met a woman who became his mistress (we don't know her name). Amazingly he remained faithful to her until he sepreated from her at his conversion. She bore him a son named Adeotadus in 372. During this time Augustine & his friend Honoratus bought into the heretical philosophy of the Manichæans.

All this while Monica kept praying for him. At 1 point she was so close to dispair that she went to see a holy bishop (name unknown) who consoled her saying: "It is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish." Trying to get away from her he headed to Rome & eventually Milan. Monica followed him. At Milan she met & was befriended by the bishop of the town, St. Ambrose. He encouraged her in her faith. Eventually Augustine feel under Ambrose's influence also. Ambrose's preaching touched Augustine's heart. In September of 386 while talking with his friend Alypius, he overhead 2 men talk about how they were converted while reading the life of St. Antony. Cut to the heart he ran into a nearby garden and cried out to God, "How long more, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an end to my sins?" He heard a child singing "Take up and read!" Seeing a copy of St. Paul's Epistles nearby, Augustine was convinced God was calling him to read them. Reading them, Augustine finally gave in & surrendered his life to Christ. Soon St. Ambrose baptised Augustine, his son Adeodatus & his friend Alypius. Adeodatus only lived about a year longer, dying at the age of 16. But during that time he helped his father.

In 387 Monica, Augustine & Navigus decided to return to Africa. At Ostia she became ill & died. In 391 he was ordained a priest. Augustine eventually went on to Hippo where he became the bishop. He wrote profusely. The most famous of his writings is his Confessions. In it he tells his life story, sins & all. But he did so much more. He battled not only the old heresy he embraced in his younger days, Manichæism, he battled the other big heresies of his day, Donatism, Pelagianism, Arianism and other heresies. He died 28 August, 430.

Here are 2 writings from his Confessions. In the 1st reading he reflects on how he ran away from God for so many years & his conversion.

"Urged to reflect upon myself, I entered under your guidance the innermost places of my being; but only because you had become my helper was I able to do so. I entered, then, and with the vision of my spirit, such as it was, I saw the incommutable light far above my spiritual ken and transcending my mind: not this common light which every carnal eye can see, nor any light of the same order; but greater, as though this common light were shining much more powerfully, far more brightly, and so extensively as to fill the universe. The light I saw was not the common light at all, but something different, utterly different, from all those things. Nor was it higher than my mind in the sense that oil floats on water or the sky is above the earth; it was exalted because this very light made me, and I was below it because by it I was made. Anyone who knows truth knows this light.

O eternal Truth, true Love, and beloved Eternity, you are my God, and for you I sigh day and night. As I first began to know you, you lifted me up and showed me that, while that which I might see exists indeed, I was not yet capable of seeing it. Your rays beamed intensely on me, beating back my feeble gaze, and I trembled with love and dread. I knew myself to be far away from you in a region of unlikeness, and I seemed to hear your voice from on high: “I am the food of the mature: grow, then, and you shall eat me. You will not change me into yourself like bodily food; but you will be changed into me”.

Accordingly I looked for a way to gain the strength I needed to enjoy you, but I did not find it until I embraced the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who is also God, supreme over all things and blessed for ever. He called out, proclaiming I am the Way and Truth and the Life, nor had I known him as the food which, though I was not yet strong enough to eat it, he had mingled with our flesh, for the Word became flesh so that your Wisdom, through whom you created all things, might become for us the milk adapted to our infancy.

Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!

Lo, you were within,

but I outside, seeking there for you,

and upon the shapely things you have made

I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.

You were with me, but I was not with you.

They held me back far from you,

those things which would have no being,

were they not in you.

You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;

you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;

you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you;

I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;

you touched me, and I burned for your peace."

Here is his relating the story of the death of his mother, St. Monica:

"Because the day when she was to leave this life was drawing near – a day known to you, though we were ignorant of it – she and I happened to be alone, through (as I believe) the mysterious workings of your will. We stood leaning against a window which looked out on a garden within the house where we were staying, at Ostia on the Tiber; for there, far from the crowds, we were recruiting our strength after the long journey, in order to prepare ourselves for our voyage overseas. We were alone, conferring very intimately. Forgetting what lay in the past, and stretching out to what was ahead, we enquired between ourselves, in the light of present truth, into what you are and what the eternal life of the saints would be like, for Eye has not seen nor ear heard nor human heart conceived it. And yet, with the mouth of our hearts wide open we panted thirstily for the celestial streams of your fountain, the fount of life which is with you.

This was the substance of our talk, though not the exact words. Yet you know, O Lord, how on that very day, amid this talk of ours that seemed to make the world with all its charms grow cheap, she said, “For my part, my son, I no longer find pleasure in anything that this life holds. What I am doing here still, or why I am still here, I do not know, for worldly hope has withered away for me. One thing only there was for which I desired to linger in this life: to see you a Catholic Christian before I died. And my God has granted this to me more lavishly than I could have hoped, letting me see even you spurning earthly happiness to be his servant. What am I still doing here?”

What I replied I cannot clearly remember, because just about that time – five days later, or not much more – she took to her bed with fever. One day during her illness she lapsed into unconsciousness and for a short time was unaware of her surroundings. We all came running, but she quickly returned to her senses, and, gazing at me and my brother as we stood there, she asked in puzzlement, “Where was I?”

We were bewildered with grief, but she looked keenly at us and said, “You are to bury your mother here”. I was silent, holding back my tears, but my brother said something about his hope that she would not die far from home but in her own country, for that would be a happier way. On hearing this she looked anxious and her eyes rebuked him for thinking so; then she turned her gaze from him to me and said, “What silly talk!” Shortly afterwards, addressing us both, she said, “Lay this body anywhere, and take no trouble over it. One thing only do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be”. Having made her meaning clear to us with such words as she could muster, she fell silent, and the pain of the disease grew worse. "