Communion with the Saints: St. Augustine and His Mother, St. Monica

This is the second in our series, "Communion with the Saints." The Feast Day of St. Augustine is today, August 28.

By L. Paige McCormick
Charleston, South Carolina

In the history of the Church, there is perhaps no greater story of sinner turned saint than Augustine of Hippo. And there is perhaps no greater example of the power of a mother’s prayer than Monica. Monica was married to Patricius, a Pagan, in Northern Africa, which was then part of the Roman Empire. Augustine, born in 354, was one of three children.

In his Confessions, Augustine chronicles his conversion to the faith and unflinchingly names his sins and the pains they caused his mother. He was an infamous debaucher and while in Carthage, entered into a 15 year relationship with a young woman who he never married. They produced a child, Adeodatus. Augustine had studied rhetoric and grammar and was widely read on pagan philosophy. He taught these subjects during these years while indulging his lusts and seeking the glory of men. During this time, also, he became involved in Manichaeism, a religious cult based on the teachings of Mani. He writes many times of how deeply he sought God in all the wrong ways and the tortures he put himself through in vain. He writes, “Where was I when I was seeking for you? You were there before me, but I had departed from myself. I could not even find myself, much less you.”

His mother was heartbroken and deeply distressed. Augustine explains how she wet the ground with her tears and sought spiritual guidance priests. In her pleas to a priest one day, the priest became irritated and her constant weeping and said to her “Go away from me: as you live, it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish.” She carried with her as consolation and hope these words and the images of a vision she had of her son standing beside her on the same wooden ruler, hearing “Where you are, there will he be also.”

Augustine had been studying Neoplatonism after becoming disenchanted with Manichaeism and these studies were drawing him closer to the ideas of Christianity. He was granted a post in the court at Milan to his mother's joy and she followed him there. Monica was under the guidance of Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, at this time and introduced Ambrose to Augustine. Ambrose even helped to arrange a society marriage for Augustine. However, there were 2 years until the girl was of marriageable age and Augustine promptly took to bed with another woman. During this time, he uttered one of his most famous prayers "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet." His mother was pressuring him to become Catholic at this time, too. Augustine was quite taken with the teaching and speaking style of Bishop Ambrose and was deeply influenced by him.

Perhaps the most influential moment of grace for Augustine was reading the life of St. Antony of the Desert. It profoundly moved him toward the religious life and he underwent a serious spiritual crisis battling indecision and attachment to his sinful ways. He writes, “Vain trifles and the triviality of the empty-headed, my old loves, held me back.” One day, while crying under a fig tree, he heard a child’s voice in his head saying, “Pick up and read, pick up and read.” He took this to mean he should read the Bible and upon opening the pages, turned to Romans 13: 13-14 and read, “Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts.” Augustine’s inner debate was over; he was joining the Church and also becoming a monk. He ran to tell his mother whom he writes, “She saw that you had granted her far more than she had long been praying for in her unhappy and tearful groans.”

After Augustine’s conversion, he was baptized at Milan in 387 and returned to Africa. Monica died on the trip back to Africa and famously said, when asked if she was afraid to leave her body so far from home, “Nothing is distant from God, and there is no ground for fear that he may not acknowledge me at the end of the world and raise me up.” Augustine’s son died shortly after leaving him alone in the world. When he arrived in Africa he sold all he had and gave all but enough to found a monastery at his home to the poor. He was ordained a priest in 391 and named Bishop of Hippo in 396. His rule for his monastery has maintained throughout the years and St. Augustine is the patron saint for clergy members who live by a religious rule.

And so a great sinner became a great saint in no small part due to the prayerful intercession of his mother Monica. May we always remember that our prayers are never in vain and that even the worst sins may be erased and our spirits wrought by God into glory. To end, I leave you my favorite passage from the Confessions. It is truly an amazing book if you can find time to read it.

“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”

-- A resident of Charleston, South Carolina, Paige is a devoted wife and mother of two young sons. She is an active homeschooler and attends the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.