SAINT MONICA of TEGASTE (331-387)  

Feast Day - August 27

St. Monica was born in the African city of Tegaste, of Christian parents.  She was married at an early age to a pagan, Patricius, and had three children, the oldest of whom was the great Doctor of the Church, Saint Augustine of Hippo.  The household was thoroughly Roman by language, culture and persuasion.  Despite Monica’s own Christianity, her children were not baptized in the faith, although their childhood was suffused by it due to Monica’s devotion and influence.

 Monica’s life was a difficult one.  She patiently suffered through the dissolute life of her husband and abuse from her mother-in-law.  Yet, her piety and patient charity won the conversion of her husband Patricius one year before his death, and the conversion of his mother as well.

 Her son Augustine was of great concern to Monica.  At the age of 19 he rejected his mother’s faith and embraced the heresy of Manichaeism (a philosophy which is based on the dualism of good and evil, spirit and matter, which leads to a denial of the good of the created order, of humans as created in the image of God, and of marriage in particular). He left Carthage, a city in which he had been working from 371-383, and took a position in Rome, and eventually another in Milan, teaching grammar, rhetoric and the liberal arts in both cities.  Disturbed by Augustine’s rejection of Christianity, Monica intensified her piety and penance, and followed Augustine to both cities.  While in Milan, Monica sought the counsel and guidance of  the wise and gentle Bishop (St.) Ambrose.  Under his influence Augustine was able to resolve his doubts about Christianity and was baptized during the Easter celebrations of his thirty-third year of life.  Monica’s long years of prayer had thus been answered and she died in-route to her home, in the port city of Ostia, in October 387, the year of Augustine’s baptism into Catholicism.

 Augustine took up monastic life and decided to return to Africa, to the city of Hippo.  There he accepted ordination to the priesthood at the age of 36, and five years later was named the bishop of that city.  His conversion, for which his mother had so fervently prayed and worked, was complete.  He preached vigorously, especially against his former allies the Manicheans, cared for the poor and orphans, took a personal interest in the formation of the clergy, established monasteries for men and women, visited the sick and wrote numerous theological treatises.  As a pastor and bishop he characterized himself as “servant of Christ and servant of the servants of Christ,” a title today applied to the Pope.  Because of his pivotal influence on the Church in the crucial Patristic era, Augustine is honored as one of the four fathers of the Western Church.  Augustine died on 28 August 430, the day which is now celebrated as his universal feast day.

 St. Monica is honored as a model for virtuous Christian mothers.  She is the patron saint of ecclesiastical societies of mothers, of women, and of all mothers.  Since 1430 her relics have been venerated in the Arrouaise Augustine monastery in the city of Rome, in the Church of San Agostino.  Her feast day is celebrated universally on 27 August.