Saint Monica and the power of prayer that allowed the conversion of Saint Augustine

One of the most influential saints in history is Saint Monica, mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo, who placed all her hope in Jesus and for several years tirelessly prayed for the conversion of her son, who years later would become a Doctor of the Church.

Augustine, a rebellious son

Monica, born Tagaste (North Africa) in the year 332, had two sons and a woman with her husband Patrick, a man who, although he was a worker, had a bad character, was a womanizer, vicious and pagan.

Through his prayer, sacrifices, penances and hope placed in God, he managed to convert the latter before he died. She also achieved the conversion of her eldest son, Augustine, who saddened her by leading a libertine and heretical life for much of her life.

Although Saint Augustine is remembered as a man of great faith, his path to the truth of God was not easy. As a child, he showed a difficult character, which caused his mother much suffering. As a young man, he remained disinterested in Christianity and, later, his search for truth led him to adopt different religious currents. However, Saint Monica never stopped praying for him.

When Augustine traveled to Carthage to study rhetoric, he became part of the Manichean sect. When he returned home and exposed heresies, Monica kicked him out of her table. On one occasion, while she was discussing her concern with a bishop, he encouraged her not to give up: “She lives in peace: it cannot happen that the child of those tears of yours is ruined!”

One night, Monica had a vision that assured her that Agustín would return to faith. Saint Augustine narrates this moment in his Confessions book:

“One day, then, while she was asleep, she dreamed that she was standing on a wooden ruler, and that a handsome and resplendent young man with a happy and smiling face approached her, while she was very afflicted and overcome with grief, who asked her the cause of her affliction and sadness, and of so many tears that she shed every day, not to know it from her mouth, but to take from here the opportunity to instruct and teach her, as usually happens in such dreams. She replied that it was my loss that made her cry, and he then ordered her and admonished her (so that she would live more safely at this point) to reflect carefully and see that where she was, there I was too. After she heard this she looked carefully and saw me standing next to her on the same ruler. Where did this consolation come from if not from that utmost kindness with which you attended to the groans of her heart? Oh, how good you are, God and my almighty Lord, that you take care of each one of us in such a way, as if it were the only one you take care of, and in such a way you take care of everyone as of each one in itself! ”.

However, Saint Augustine’s conversion did not come so early; in his Confessions, he points out that this path was rocky and extensive:

“Even after all this I was wallowing in the depths of the mire for almost nine years, and surrounded by darkness of error and falsehood. And although many times I tried to get up and get out of the deep abyss, with the emphasis and efforts I made, I sank deeper; and meanwhile that chaste, pious, temperate widow, and such as those whom You love, now more joyful with the hope that You had given her, but no less eager to cry and moan for that reason, did not cease to bother You at all hours with her prayers and tears for my conversion, and although their fervent and continuous prayers were well accepted in your divine presence, you nevertheless allowed me to be enveloped and stirred even more in that thick darkness of my errors.”.

Few stories in the lives of saints are as moving as that of Saint Monica, who tirelessly pursued her lost son. According to the Catholic Encyclopediawhen Augustine escaped to Rome to teach rhetoric, she followed him, only to discover that he had already left for Milan.

“There he found Saint Ambrose and, through him, finally had the joy of seeing Augustine give in, after seventeen years of resistance. Mother and son spent six months of true peace at Cassiacum, after which Augustine was baptized in the church of St. John the Baptist in Milan. However, Africa claimed them and they set out on their journey, stopping in Civit’ Vecchia and Ostia. There death overtook Monica and the best pages of her ‘Confessions’ were written as a result of the emotion that Agustín experienced then,” explains the Encyclopedia.

Saint Augustine narrates the power of his mother Monica’s prayer

In your Confessions bookSaint Augustine refers to his mother’s faith and unwavering prayer: “Having heard, therefore, that you had already done in me a great and great part of what I asked you every day with tears to do (for if I was not still quiet in the truth, I was already removed from error and falsehood), I did not That is why her heart was moved by no movement of immoderate joy, rather because she was very sure that You would also grant her the missing part, because You had promised her the whole, she answered me very calmly and with a heart full of confidence. , that the faith she had in Jesus Christ made her firmly hope that before she left this life she would see me as a Catholic Christian.”

“This is what he said to me; but before You, inexhaustible source of mercies, he multiplied prayers and shed more copious tears so that You would deign to speed up your help and illuminate my darkness. She used to go more carefully and hastily to your temple, and pending the words of Ambrose, she received from his mouth those living waters that give eternal life, because she loved and respected that holy man as an angel of God, because she knew that he “He was the one who had put me in that state of doubt in which I hesitated, which my mother sensed with complete certainty was the means by which I would go from my illness to health.”he adds.

On her deathbed, Saint Monica told her son, in the saint’s words: “Son, as far as I am concerned, nothing delights me anymore in this life. I do not know what I should do from now on in this world, nor why I should live here, not having anything to look forward to in this century. There was only one thing for which I wanted to spend a little time in this life, which was to see you a Christian Catholic, before I died. My God has granted me this more fully than I desired; for, besides this, I see you in the number and class of those who, despising all earthly happiness, devote themselves entirely to the service of him. Well, what am I doing in this world?

Saint Monica’s perseverance in prayer achieved the conversion of her son, Saint Augustine, leaving a legacy of faith and hope for those who seek the conversion of their loved ones until today, several centuries later.