St. Monica of Tagaste (SAU 047; detail) Ceramic Tile
She was married to an abusive, philandering pagan yet raised three children--two boys and a girl—to sainthood. St. Monica of Tagaste in the Roman province of Numidia (now Souk Ahras, Algeria) is the poster child for the long-suffering, married Christian woman with children. Today, we would call her a ‘helicopter parent’. + Despite his upbringing, Augustine her eldest son ran with a wild crowd at the Roman equivalent of college. He took up with a mistress for fifteen years and fathered a child Adeodatus out of wedlock. Bitter were the tears that Saint Monica shed over her son's actions. Nearly the last straw, however, was Augustine’s admission over dinner to being a Manichean auditor, an entry-level member of an ancient pagan Persian religion. St. Monica threw him out of the house. Only an apparition by a comforting angel and the reassurance of nameless bishop who said that “it is impossible that a child of born of so many tears should perish” caused her to relent and readmit Augustine to her company. Now in his late 20s-early 30s and eager to escape his nagging mother, Augustine told her one day he was going down to the docks to see off ‘a friend’. Instead, he sailed away himself… to Rome! St. Monica doubled down: She followed him from North Africa to Rome and from Rome to Milan. There, her persistence was rewarded: in 386, with his much-relieved mother in attendance, Augustine (together with his son Adeodatus and friend Alypius) was baptized in the Church of St. John the Baptist by St. Ambrose. + Overshadowed by her more famous son St. Augustine, St. Monica’s other two children Navigius and ‘Perpetua’ (not to be confused with the martyr of the same name memorialized on March 7) are also regarded as pre-Congregation saints. Even her husband Patricius had converted and was baptized on his deathbed (c. 370). Her heart’s desire achieved with St. Augustine’s baptism, her earthly work was finished. St. Monica died of a fever at Ostia, the port of Rome, on her return trip from Italy to North Africa in 387. + In this vignette, St. Monica wears a violet mantle with a green lining over a reddish-pink robe and a white veil. Her head is surrounded by a halo in emerald green with yellow-green rays. Alert and attentive, she gestures animatedly with both hands raised. Her gesture approximates the Roman rhetorical gesture of supplication or entreaty. A seascape of Ostia appears in the background. (For the image’s larger context, see further: SAU 047.) + Not surprisingly, St. Monica is patron saint of difficult marriages and disappointing children. + Feast: August 27 + Image Credit (SAU 047): Detail of an antique devotional print in chromolithography of SS. Monica and Augustine entitled Loquebantur soli valde dulcimer [‘They spoke alone together sweetly’], originally published by the Socièté de St. Augustin, Bruges, Belgium, late 19th century, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.
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