August 27th
Saint Monica of Hippo
331 - 387
Most of us are familiar with Saint Monica, the mother of the great Saint Augustine. As the story goes, Monica had a wayward child in her son Augustine. He was a great success, but he wasn't living a moral life and he wasn't growling in holiness. In fact, his behavior was leading him away from holiness and away from God altogether. Back at home, his mother, Monica, prayed fervently for the conversion of her son, Augustine. Not only was St. Monica's prayer time consumed with the conversion of her son, but also with the conversion of her husband, who was known to be adulterous and abusive to Monica. St. Monica persisted in prayer. God would reward this beautiful Saint for her endless petitions with the answer to prayer she had sought for so long!
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The canonized women who are mothers add to our altars a special kind of incense – a two-fold fragrance of motherhood, both natural and spiritual. The very definition of their sainthood reveals that the life of the soul was sacrosanct to them and that while they nurtured the physical life of their children, it was eternal life which they desired to impart above all.
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The next two days mark the feasts of two great saints of the Church, a mother and a son, whose lives give testimony to a sure-fire method of evangelizing those we love.
St. Monica (August 27) is the mother of St. Augustine (August 28), though Augustine was no saint when Monica began her earnest intercession. At that time he was a pagan and a member of the heretical Manichean sect. He was known to be a carouser who lived with a woman to whom he had fathered a child. A brilliant mind, he was "devoted" to his views and his lifestyle, and had no intention of converting to the Catholic faith.
St. Monica was distraught about her son's dissolute ways and decided to do something about it. She prayed. And in the end, her prayers won the soul of her son.
What was it that made St. Monica's prayers so effective? I think five strategies are primarily responsible. Perhaps you can implement them as you seek to evangelize those you love.
Read the rest
The canonized women who are mothers add to our altars a special kind of incense – a two-fold fragrance of motherhood, both natural and spiritual. The very definition of their sainthood reveals that the life of the soul was sacrosanct to them and that while they nurtured the physical life of their children, it was eternal life which they desired to impart above all.
Read the rest
The next two days mark the feasts of two great saints of the Church, a mother and a son, whose lives give testimony to a sure-fire method of evangelizing those we love.
St. Monica (August 27) is the mother of St. Augustine (August 28), though Augustine was no saint when Monica began her earnest intercession. At that time he was a pagan and a member of the heretical Manichean sect. He was known to be a carouser who lived with a woman to whom he had fathered a child. A brilliant mind, he was "devoted" to his views and his lifestyle, and had no intention of converting to the Catholic faith.
St. Monica was distraught about her son's dissolute ways and decided to do something about it. She prayed. And in the end, her prayers won the soul of her son.
What was it that made St. Monica's prayers so effective? I think five strategies are primarily responsible. Perhaps you can implement them as you seek to evangelize those you love.
Read the rest
August 27
Feast of St. Monica (331 – 387)
“Nothing is far from God.”
-St. Monica
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