Today is August 27, the Memorial of St. Monica.
We read at today’s Mass, “For this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly, that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe” (1 Thes 2:13).
St. Monica is remembered above all as a mother who would not stop praying for her son. For years, she wept and begged God for the conversion of Augustine, who had abandoned the faith. A bishop once consoled her by saying, “It cannot be that the son of so many tears should perish.” Those tears became the seed of Augustine’s conversion, which would change the history of the Church.
But Monica was more than a mother who prayed. Augustine himself tells us in his “Confessions” that she was a peacemaker. When others vented to her in anger, she never repeated their words in ways that would deepen division. Instead, she spoke only what might lead to reconciliation. Her gift was not to stir up discord but to sow peace. That spirit of patient love and steadfast faith made her intercession for Augustine all the more powerful.
Trusting in God’s mercy
At the end of her life, Monica gave her son one request: “Remember me at the altar.” Her dying wish was to be remembered in prayer at Mass. How moving it is to see how ancient the Church’s practice is of praying for the faithful departed. Monica reminds us that even in death, our communion is not broken but renewed in Christ’s sacrifice.
Today, we give thanks for our mothers and pray for all those who, like Augustine once was, are far from the Church. Through Monica’s intercession, may we never grow weary in prayer for those we love, trusting that God’s mercy is greater than our tears.
Let us pray,
O God, who console the sorrowful and who mercifully accepted the motherly tears of Saint Monica for the conversion of her son Augustine, grant us, through the intercession of them both, that we may bitterly regret our sins and find the grace of your pardon. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
