St. Monica

Feastday: August 27

Patron of Wives and Abuse Victims
Died: 387

St. Monica was married by arrangement to a pagan official in North Africa, who was much older than she, and although generous, was also violent tempered. His mother Lived with them and was equally difficult, which proved a constant challenge to St. Monica. She had three children; Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua. Through her patience and prayers, she was able to convert her husband and his mother to the Catholic faith in 370. He died a year later. Perpetua and Navigius entered the religious Life. St. Augustine was much more difficult, as she had to pray for him for 17 years, begging the prayers of priests who, for a while, tried to avoid her because of her persistence at this seemingly hopeless endeavor. One priest did console her by saying, "it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish." This thought, coupled with a vision that she had received strengthened her. St. Augustine was baptized by St. Ambrose in 387. St. Monica died later that same year, on the way back to Africa from Rome in the Italian town of Ostia.

 

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from Wikipedia Saint Monica^[1] (AD 331^[2] – 387), also known as Monica of Hippo, (Be. Timaniket) was an early Christian saint and the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo. She is honoured in the Roman Catholic Church where she is remembered and venerated for her outstanding Christian virtues, particularly the suffering against the adultery of her husband, and a prayerful life dedicated to the reformation of her son, who wrote extensively of her pious acts and life with her in his Confessions. Popular Christian legends recall Saint Monica to have wept every night for her son Augustine.

Contents

• 1 Life
• 2 Veneration
• 3 In popular culture
• 4 Gallery
• 5 References
• 6 Bibliography
• 7 External links

Life[edit]

Because of her name and place of birth, Monica is assumed to have been of Berber origin.^[3] She was married early in life to Patricius, a pagan, who held an official position in Tagaste (present-day Souk Ahras, Algeria). Patricius had a violent temper and appears to have been of dissolute habits. In addition, her mother-in-law seems to have been of a like disposition. Her alms deeds and her habits of prayer annoyed him, but it is said that he always held her in respect.^[4]
Monica had three children who survived infancy: Augustine the eldest, Navigius the second, and a daughter, Perpetua. Monica had been unable to secure baptism for her children, and she experienced much grief when Augustine fell ill. In her distress she asked Patritius to allow Augustine to be baptized; Patritius agreed, but on the boy's recovery withdrew his consent.
All Monica's anxiety now centered in Augustine; he was wayward and, as he himself tells us, lazy. He was sent to school at Madaurus.Her husband died while the 17 year old Augustine was studying rhetoric in Carthage.^[4]
At Carthage Augustine had become a Manichaean and when on his return home he shared his views regarding Manichaeism, Monica drove him away from her table. However, she is said to have experienced a vision that convinced her to reconcile with her son.^[4]

Saint Augustine and his mother, Saint Monica (painting from 1846)

It was at this time that she went to see a certain holy bishop, whose name is not given, but who consoled her with the now famous words, "the child of those tears shall never perish." Monica followed her wayward son to Rome, where he had gone secretly; when she arrived he had already gone to Milan, but she followed him. Here she found St. Ambrose and through him she ultimately had the joy of seeing Augustine convert to Christianity, after seventeen years of resistance.
In his book Confessions, Augustine wrote of a peculiar practice of his mother in which she "brought to certain oratories, erected in the memory of the saints, offerings of porridge, bread, and wine."^[5] When she moved to Milan, the bishop Ambrose forbade her to use the offering of wine, since "it might be an occasion of gluttony for those who were already given to drink". So, Augustine wrote of her:

In place of a basket filled with fruits of the earth, she had learned to bring to the oratories of the martyrs a heart full of purer petitions, and to give all that she could to the poor - so that the communion of the Lord's body might be rightly celebrated in those places where, after the example of his passion, the martyrs had been sacrificed and crowned.

— Confessions 6.2.2

Mother and son spent six months of true peace at Rus Cassiciacum (present-day Cassago Brianza) after which time Augustine was baptized in the church of St. John the Baptist at Milan. Africa claimed them, however, and they set out on their journey, stopping at Civitavecchia and at Ostia. Here death overtook Monica and the finest pages of Augustine's Confessions were penned as the result of the emotion he then experienced.

Veneration[edit]

Saint Monica's tomb, Basilica di Sant'Agostino, Rome

Saint Monica was buried at Ostia, and at first seems to have been almost forgotten, though her body was removed during the 6th century to a hidden crypt in the church of Santa Aurea in Osta. Monica was buried near the tomb of St. Aurea of Ostia.^[6] It was later transferred to the Augustinian Basilica of Sant'Agostino in Rome.
Anicius Bassus wrote Monica's funerary epitaph, which survived in ancient manuscripts.^[6] The actual stone on which it was written was rediscovered in the summer of 1945 in the church of Santa Aurea. The fragment was discovered after two boys were digging a hole to plant a football post in the courtyard beside Santa Aurea.^[7]
A translation from the Latin, by Douglas Boin, reads as:

Here the most virtuous mother of a young man set her ashes, a second light to your merits, Augustine. As a priest, serving the heavenly laws of peace, you taught [or, you teach] the people entrusted to you with your character. A glory greater than the praise of your accomplishments crowns you both - Mother of the Virtues, more fortunate because of her offspring.^[6]

About the 13th century, however, the cult of St. Monica began to spread and a feast in her honour was kept on 4 May. In 1430 Pope Martin V ordered the relics to be brought to Rome. Many miracles occurred on the way, and the cultus of St. Monica was definitely established. Later the Archbishop of Rouen, Cardinal d'Estouteville, built a church at Rome in honour of St. Augustine, the Basilica di Sant'Agostino, and deposited the relics of St. Monica in a chapel to the left of the high altar. The Office of St. Monica, however, does not seem to have found a place in the Roman Breviary before the 16th century.
The city of Santa Monica, California, is named after Monica. A legend states that in the 18th century Father Juan Crespí named a local dripping spring Las Lagrimas de Santa Monica ("Saint Monica’s Tears") (today known as the Serra Springs) that was reminiscent of the tears that Saint Monica shed over her son's early impiety.^[8] As recorded in his diary, however, Crespí actually named the place San Gregorio.^[8] What is known for certain is that by the 1820s, the name Santa Monica was in use and its first official mention occurred in 1827 in the form of a grazing permit.^[8] There is a statue of this saint in Santa Monica's Palisades Park by sculptor Eugene Morahan; it was completed in 1934.^[9]

In popular culture[edit]

The "weeping" springs outside Santa Monica, California were named for the saint.
In the 2012 film Restless Heart: The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Saint Monica is portrayed by Italian actress Monica Guerritore.

Gallery[edit]

• 

  Marriage of Saint Monica by Antonio Vivarini, 1441
  
• 

  Statue of St. Monica on the facade of a former Augustinian church in Tábor, Czech Republic, ca. 1700
  
• 

  The Angel Appears to Saint Monica by Pietro Maggi, 1714
  
• 

  Fresco by Simon Benedikt Faistenberger, 1749
  

References[edit]

1. ^ "...Augustine's mother's name, Monica, is Berber ... the names Monnica and Nonnica are found on tombstones in the Libyan language - as such Monnica is the only Berber name commonly used in English", Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers, Wiley-Blackwell, 1997, p.71, 293
2. ^ The Liturgy of the Hours, Volume IV. Proper of Saints, August 27.
3. ^ Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers, Wiley-Blackwell, 1997, p.71.
4. ^ ^{a b c} Foley O.F.M., Leonard. Saint of the Day, Lives, Lessons, and Feast, (revised by Pat McCloskey O.F.M.) Franciscan Media
5. ^ Confessions 6.2.2
6. ^ ^{a b c} "Church of Sant'Aurea". Ostia-Antica.org. Retrieved March 15, 2011.
7. ^ Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, Revised Edition with a New Epilogue (University of California Press, 2000), 124.
8. ^ ^{a b c} Paula A. Scott, Santa Monica: a history on the edge. Making of America series (Arcadia Publishing, 2004), 17-18.
9. ^ "Santa Monica Sculpture". You Are Here.com. ?. Retrieved March 14, 2011.

Bibliography[edit]

• Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. New edition with an epilogue, Berkeley, University of California Press, c2000
• Everett Ferguson, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, Taylor & Francis, 1998, p. 776
• John J. O'Meara, The Young Augustine:the growth of St. Augustine's mind up to his conversion, London, Longmans, Green and Co, 1954

•  "St. Monica". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.
• Saint Monica at EWTN
• Saint Monica at Sacred Texts