Wife and Mother

St Monica

It is often said that behind every great man there is an even greater woman! A light-hearted version of the same one-liner suggests that behind every great man there is an astonished mother-in-law! Joking aside, history bears witness to the truth that behind many a great saint there is an extraordinary mother, and one such mother was St Monica, the mother of St Augustine.

St Monica was born in Tagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras, Algeria) in around 332 to 338. She was raised in a Christian home but married Patricius, a pagan, who proved to be an unfaithful and violent husband (although he never beat Monica). Despite her unhappy marriage St Monica persevered and loved her husband as best she could. Although our age may find this counsel difficult to accept, she advised other women going through marriage difficulties: ‘If you can master your tongue, not only do you run less risk of being beaten, but perhaps you may even, one day, make your husband better.’ The advice paid off in her own life as Patricius underwent a conversion and from that time on led an exemplary Christian life.

St Monica bore three children. Although proud of her son Augustine in many ways (he was a very successful rhetorician and scholar), she was deeply ashamed of his rejection of her Christian faith and his debauched way of life. Distraught and at the end of her tether she approached St Ambrose who was so moved by her witness of a mother’s love that he said: ‘It is impossible that the son of so many tears should perish.’ He was right and, at the age of twenty-eight, Augustine was received and baptized by St Ambrose himself.As St Monica lay dying, aged fifty-six, she said: ‘There was indeed one thing for which I wished to tarry a little in this life, and that was that I might see you a Catholic Christian before I died. My God hath answered this more than abundantly, so that I see you now made his servant and spurning all earthly happiness. What more am I to do here?’

On this her feast-day we pray to St Monica who is patron saint of patience and of all wives and mothers, and we ask for her intercession that all those called to the noble vocation of marriage and motherhood.