Prayer Warrior Mother Saint Monica on the Feast of All Saints 2013

 

My son asked me to couple with him as Saint Augustine and Saint Monica for our All Saints Gathering this year. This was a special opportunity for me to revisit the life of Saint Monica, who is renowned for her diligence in praying for her son, thirty-four years from his birth to his conversion.   

Have you ever prayed for your children so hard that you may have fallen asleep with a Rosary in your hand or awoke in the middle of the night, stirred to pray for them throughout the trials of faith in their lives?  You may have offered Masses for them, or sacrifices, sought priestly spiritual direction?  All of this leading to your mother's heart to trust in the Lord as you learn to value the greatest of His love for them?

How Monica inspires the vocation of mothers to persevere in faithfulness, even if a lifetime does not reveal the victory that is His promise to keep.  This final desire of hers?  Truly remarkable!  Her last request to her son before she died:


“Lay this body anywhere, let not the care for it trouble you at all. This only I ask, that you will remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you be.” (Confessions IX, 11)
 
I wish to share with my mother-friends the expression of gratitude from this son at the time of his mother’s death.  Is it not a consolation to all mothers who lay down their lives for the souls of their children to marvel at these words of a loving and grateful, Saintly son for his Saintly mother?  

He writes:  “I closed her eyes; and there flowed a great sadness into my heart, and it was passing into tears, when my eyes at the same time, by the violent control of my mind, sucked back the fountain dry, and woe was me in such a struggle! […]For we did not consider it fitting to celebrate that funeral with tearful plaints and groanings; for on such wise are they who die unhappy, or are altogether dead, wont to be mourned. But she neither died unhappy, nor did she altogether die. For of this were we assured by the witness of her good conversation, her faith unfeigned, (cf. 1 Timothy 1:5) and other sufficient grounds. […]What, then, was that which did grievously pain me within, but the newly-made wound, from having that most sweet and dear habit of living together suddenly broken off? […]As, then, I was left destitute of so great comfort in her, my soul was stricken, and that life torn apart as it were, which, of hers and mine together, had been made but one.” 

“And then little by little did I bring back my former thoughts of Your handmaid, her devout conversation towards You, her holy tenderness and attentiveness towards us, which was suddenly taken away from me; and it was pleasant to me to weep in Your sight, for her and for me, concerning her and concerning myself. And I set free the tears which before I repressed, that they might flow at their will, spreading them beneath my heart; and it rested in them, for Your ears were near me—not those of man, who would have put a scornful interpretation on my weeping. But now in writing I confess it unto You, O Lord! Read it who will, and interpret how he will; and if he finds me to have sinned in weeping for my mother during so small a part of an hour—that mother who was for a while dead to my eyes, who had for many years wept for me, that I might live in Your eyes—let him not laugh at me, but rather, if he be a man of a noble charity, let him weep for my sins against You, the Father of all the brethren of Your Christ.” (Confessions IX, 12)

“I then, O my Praise and my Life, Thou God of my heart, putting aside for a little her good deeds, for which I joyfully give thanks to You, do now beseech You for the sins of my mother. Hearken unto me, through that Medicine of our wounds who hung upon the tree, and who, sitting at Your right hand, makes intercession for us. (cf. Romans 8:34) I know that she acted mercifully, and from the heart (cf. Matthew 18:35) forgave her debtors their debts; do Thou also forgive her debts, whatever she contracted during so many years since the water of salvation. Forgive her, O Lord, forgive her, I beseech You; enter not into judgment with her. Let Your mercy be exalted above Your justice, (cf. James 2:13) because Your words are true, and You have promised mercy unto the merciful; (cf. Matthew 5:7) which You gave them to be who wilt have mercy on whom You will have mercy, and wilt have compassion on whom You have had compassion (cf. Romans 9:15).”

“And inspire, O my Lord my God, inspire Your servants my brethren, Your sons my masters, who with voice and heart and writings I serve, that so many of them as shall read these confessions may at Your altar remember Monica, Your handmaid, together with Patricius, her sometime husband, by whose flesh You introduced me into this life, in what manner I know not. May they with pious affection be mindful of my parents in this transitory light, of my brethren that are under You our Father in our Catholic mother, and of my fellow citizens in the eternal Jerusalem, which the wandering of Your people sighs for from their departure until their return. That so my mother's last entreaty to me may, through my confessions more than through my prayers, be more abundantly fulfilled to her through the prayers of many.” (Confessions IX, 13)