St. Monica

This past week, the Church celebrated the feast of St. Monica. For those who may not be familiar with Monica, she is the mother of St. Augustine. Augustine walked away from the Faith at a young age, and he spent many years devoted to a pseudo-religion called Manichaeism. Monica was distraught at her son’s turning away from Christ, and spent all of those years in prayer, offering even her tears for her son’s conversion. Eventually, as Augustine himself puts it, “[God] flashed and shone, and broke through [his] blindness;” God got through to Augustine and led him back to the Faith. Both Augustine and the Church attribute her prayers as one of the chief influences that eventually brought him to the Faith, even if in a behind-the-scenes manner.

This is why so many look to her intercession and help when children or other loved ones wander from the Faith. Most (or perhaps even all of us) have likely had the experience of a friend or family member leaving the Church for this reason or that. It is a painful experience to say the least. But St. Monica offers us a lesson of hope: the road can be long, it can be winding, it can even be painful; but if we are patient and entrust those loved ones to God’s providence, He can eventually break through their blindness as well and lead them home to the Church.

We have a prayer group here at Annunciation dedicated to St. Monica. They meet after the 8 am Mass on Sundays and after the 6 pm Mass on Tuesdays to ask for St. Monica’s prayers for all those who have fallen away from the Faith as Augustine had once done. If you are in that same boat as she once was, or even if you are not but want to help those who are through your own prayers, I would encourage you to join the group some time and join your prayers to St. Monica’s for the conversion and return of all those who have gone astray.