The Righteous Monica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo
c. 332 – 387
A devout Christian mother of Tagaste in North Africa who bore with a difficult marriage and prayed unceasingly, with many tears, for the conversion of her son Augustine, which she lived to see.
Saint Monica was a devout Christian mother of Tagaste in Roman North Africa (present-day Souk Ahras, Algeria), born around 332. On the basis of her name she is thought to have been of Berber descent, and she was raised by Christian parents.
She is remembered above all for her perseverance in prayer, marked by many tears, for the conversion of her son Augustine, who in his youth lived dissolutely and adhered for nine years to the Manichaean sect. She lived to see his baptism by Bishop Ambrose of Milan before her death.
Monica also bore patiently with a difficult marriage to Patricius, a pagan official of Tagaste, and by her gentle disposition is said to have brought both her husband and her mother-in-law to the Christian faith. She is venerated as an intercessor for wives, mothers, and the conversion of wayward children.
Monica married Patricius, a pagan decurion of Tagaste of difficult temper, whom she is said to have brought to Christian baptism before his death. The couple had three children who survived infancy: Augustine, Navigius (Navig).
Her son Augustine, who would become bishop of Hippo and one of the most influential Christian writers of the West, was the chief object of her prayers during his years of dissolute living and adherence to Manichaeism.
According to the tradition recorded around her life, an unnamed bishop who had himself abandoned Manichaeism consoled the grieving Monica with the words that the child of those tears could not be lost. This consolation is remembered as a sign of the eventual fruit of her perseverance.
Augustine's own account of his mother in his Confessions, including the shared contemplative experience at Ostia shortly before her death, has secured her enduring memory in both East and West.
Monica was initially buried at Ostia following her death in 387. During the sixth century her remains were transferred to a hidden crypt in the Church of Santa Aurea in Ostia, near the tomb of Saint Aurea.
In 1430 Pope Martin V ordered her relics brought to Rome, and multiple miracles were reported during the transfer. Archbishop Guillaume d'Estouteville of Rouen subsequently built the Basilica di Sant'Agostino in Rome, where her relics were deposited in a chapel to the left of the high altar, her principal shrine.
Monica's original funerary epitaph, composed by Anicius Auchenius Bassus, was rediscovered at Santa Aurea in the summer of 1945 when a stone fragment of the inscription was uncovered.
Monica is commemorated on May 4 in the Eastern Orthodox tradition and on August 27 in the Latin Church and the Church of England. As a pre-schism Western saint she is venerated across the Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran traditions.
Pre-schism Western saint; intercessor for the conversion of children.