With Mother’s Day this Sunday, it is only appropriate that this week’s Inspiration be devoted to the purity of love that, on earth, can only be found in mothers. In past years I have written about my angelic Madonna. Her devotion to her children was unceasing and its depth could never be extinguished or diminished even unto her death.
Mom had four sons. One tragically passed away just short of six years old from infantile leukemia. She carried the burden of that loss all the days of her life. Her remaining three sons (myself included) never cut her any slack. There is a fine line between being a precocious child and being a hellion. From our youth right up to adulthood, we constantly danced on that line and often crossed it. My mom prayed for us. She prayed constantly. She prayed fervently.
I remember asking her one day, after kidding her that she was going to develop calluses the size of silver dollars from praying the rosary so much, why she prayed all the time. She smiled as her beautiful eyes locked onto mine. “I pray for you, Son. I pray for all of my sons.”
In recalling both her faith in, and her love for her children, I am reminded this weekend of the story of another mother’s faith and love. The parallels with my Mom’s life and St. Monica’s are in many ways uncanny.
Early in the fourth century, Monica was born in Tagaste, North Africa. Her parents were Christians, and she was brought up to be a woman of strong and noble character. She seems, however, to have made a sad mistake in her marriage to Patricius, a pagan and a man of ungovernable temper.
Monica’s life was made doubly miserable, because her mother-in-law, from whom Patricius undoubtedly inherited his disposition, lived with them, and it is believed aided and abetted Patricius in his abusing Monica and mocking her religious devotion.
In the town where they lived, however, there were many other unhappy wives whose lives would have been much more embittered due to the cruel and harsh treatment of their husbands, had it not been for the sweetness and kindness shown by Monica through all of her trials. In her sufferings she was on their level, but by her loftiness of spirit she helped them to climb with her the mountains of Hope and Courage.
Monica and Patricius had three children; but it was the famous Augustine who brought his mother’s name into history, and made her known and loved down through the centuries.
As a little boy Augustine was very wayward. He seemed to have inherited all of his father’s – and doubtless some of his grandmother’s – uneven temperament.
He was disobedient, lazy, and unfair in all his dealings. He would write of himself, in later years, in his famous book of confessions, “I stole that of which I had enough, and much better. Nor cared I to enjoy what I stole, but joyed in the theft itself.”
From boyhood to manhood he seemed to develop more and more into a lazy parasite, feeding upon the lusts of the world, and satisfying only his physical passions. At Carthage, where he studied rhetoric and public speaking for three years, he went often to the chariot races, the gladiatorial fights and the theater. While at Carthage his father, who had finally converted to Christianity, died, and alone in her home Monica wept many bitter tears over the sins of her son, Augustine.
She prayed continually for him. Just as God’s love broods over us in tenderness and love, so the heart of a true mother broods yearningly over the sins and mistakes of her child. Her love was so strong that she would have literally died to save Augustine from himself.
The years passed on and Monica’s prayers slowly began to bear fruit. Sick and disgusted with the sinful life he was leading, Augustine became morose and dissatisfied with everything.
His talent for rhetoric and public speaking, however, were so pronounced that Augustine finally took up teaching in Milan, after passing a rigorous examination necessary to attain such a position.
Monica followed her son to Milan, still hoping and praying for his ultimate redemption. Her prayers were buttressed by Augustine’s eventual meeting and ultimately the mentorship of a famous bishop named Ambrose, who began to exert a strong influence toward goodness in Augustine’s life.
Monica still saw much in her boy’s life at Milan to make her troubled, but she wisely refrained from “too much speaking,” and contented herself with earnest prayer and Christian example. Little by little the study of the Bible, his mother’s prayers, and Bishop Ambrose’s sermons, melted Augustine’s proud heart. Again and again he fought his temper, and again and again he fell. At last a day came when he had hit his final battle, and alone in his garden he fought it out, and God triumphed. Augustine’s will to sin was destroyed; and the little mother of many tears found her mourning turned to joy.
Seventeen years of wrestling with God for the soul of this boy. Was it worth it? Ask any mother who has gone through the same Gethsemane, and her face will shine as she answers, “My son was lost and is now found!” It was worth it.
Augustine now resigned his professorship in rhetoric and devoted his entire time to the service of God. For some time he and his mother lived quietly together while he wrote two books. In the evenings they would talk together about the beautiful things of God; and at the same time Augustine opened his heart to his mother, and told of his longing to go back to Africa and preach to those who in his former years he had led astray.
“It is well, my son; I will go with you,” she said. No lagging behind for her own comfort, no diminishing of the ever brooding mother’s love. It was a wearisome journey over the Apennine Mountains, and the brave mother was pretty well exhausted by the time they reached the seaport of Ostia.
Before setting out on their sea voyage to Africa, they rested at Ostia in a house with a pretty garden overlooking the sea. Sitting quietly together in the twilight, evening after evening, Monica little by little, perhaps unconsciously, revealed the agony of the years through which she had passed, and Augustine was sorely smitten with remorse.
Here at Ostia Monica died; and bitter was the grief of her son. At last, however, a great peace filled his heart, and he resolved to live just as she would have wished him to live, in the love and service of God and his fellow-men.
He went on to Africa, where he was ordained a priest and finally became bishop of the town of Hippo. He wrote many books which have influenced the whole course of Christian thought even down to today. He remained bishop of Hippo until his death, forty-three years after his conversion.
Forty-three years of rich service to God versus seventeen years of a mother’s prayers! As it certainly was for Monica and for my mother, Lydia, from the throne of Heaven they can now look up and be faint-hearted no longer. Their wayward children of your earnest prayers have risen up to your expectations. With your hands folded in prayer and your thoughts centered upon the glory of God, your children will soon return to join you forever in the Kingdom of Faith and Love.
– St. Monica’s story is adapted from one written by Laura Adams and published in The Moral Compass by William J. Bennett
Have an AWE-full Mother’s Day Weekend!
William J. “Bill” Bacque’