Saints Under the Dome: St. Monica
Have you ever wondered if God will ever answer your prayer?
Picture from: Word on Fire
Have you had to learn how to embrace being in the waiting while God is working in you or for you? It hurts and its difficult, isn’t it? However, we honor a Catholic Saint that models that so well for us. Her name is Saint Monica. Saint Monica was born in 331 A.D. in Tagaste, which is present-day Algeria.Her feast day is on August 27th. St Monica faced many difficulties in her life. Though she was a Christian, she was forced into marriage with a pagan, Patritius, who was cruel and promiscuous. He made her life extremely troublesome by how he treated her and how he treated others.
Though she had every right to claim victimhood, feel sorry for herself, and whine about how tough her life was, she persevered and stayed kind and faithful to God. How often do we use our burdens in life to dwell in our miseries instead of turning to God and asking Him to get us through?
Being a Christian never meant our lives would be easier and it never meant God would never let us go through suffering, but being a Christian has always meant that we would not have to bear the challenges alone and that we have the willpower in our body and souls to survive through another day if we could only turn to God and cling to Him.
This was how Saint Monica lived. Through her steadfast prayer, her commitment to her marriage, and the significance she placed on charity, she influenced her husband to convert to Christianity. If she would have given into despair, perhaps her husband’s soul would have been lost and maybe even her own. What a beautiful reflection of the vocation of marriage. We always hear that the role of a spouse is to get the other spouse to Heaven. That is exactly what Saint Monica did through her commitment to prayer and to God.
Most people don’t know the story of her influence in her husband’s conversion. She is mostly known for her role in the conversion of her son, Saint Augustine of Hippo. When Augustine was young, he fell away from his Christian faith. He became deeply rooted in sin like vanity and lust. His life of sin led him to father a son with one of his many mistresses. Saddened by how her son went astray, Monica persisted in praying for the conversion of her son. She remained loving toward him and never gave up on him. She also sought the advice of spiritual leaders like Saint Ambrose, who was a bishop at the time. Eventually, Augustine was convicted of changing his life and seeking God after being influenced by Ambrose’s teachings and the faith of his mother. He was baptized at 32 and went on become an important figure in the Catholic Church through his famous writings. Saint Monica is a perfect example of how to be a wife and mother full of faith. For those of us that are called to the vocation of marriage and parenthood, we are truly shown that God works miracles in the waiting and that He is always with us even if it seems like nothing is happening.
Transcend the Ordinary Blogs
keep the conversation going about the beauty of the Catholic faith and the Transcend Campaign. Want to see how you can sponsor a facet of the Church? Email Rebecca Almanza, our development director, at ralmanza@stannparish.org. Please continue to pray for the successful completion of these projects and for our church.