MONICA, MOTHER AND WIFE
Memorial of Saint Monica
My dear encountered couples:
This is the day of the year that gives hope to all mothers and wives who worry about the spiritual condition of their children and husbands. It is the feast of St. Monica whose son, Augustine, for the first thirty plus years of his life stayed as far from the baptismal font as he could get, and whose husband put off his acceptance of Christ until he was about dead.
Monica prayed and cried, she worried and sobbed, wept and wailed for years over both of them. In Southern California, as the story goes, some Spanish explorers found a rock spring that dripped and dribbled without letup. They called it, and the town they founded nearby, Santa Monica.
If the spiritual life of your son or daughter, or your husband, is the worry of your life, pray, keep praying, and have faith. Cry if you want to. It worked for Monica, why not for you?
Sometimes we might wonder why God takes so long in converting those we pray for. Or why our children who were God’s little angels when they were young have drifted away from the practice of their faith despite all the Masses and rosaries we offer for them. It just might be God’s way of making saints out of us.
Would Monica have become the woman whose feast we celebrate today if her faith and perseverance weren’t tested to such an extreme? God works in mysterious ways to make us saints. Monica’s family was the love of her life; it was also her greatest sorrow. But it made her a saint and concluded with a happy ending for all.
Is that maybe the path God has in mind for you?
