St Monica might be said to be a saint of the margins of our time. In a time when people from the Middle East and North Africa are increasingly viewed with suspicion and treated with distrust when they try to flee horrors beyond our imagining, St Monica should make us look again. She was from Tagaste in what is now Algeria in North Africa. It seems from her name that she was a Berber (Ama-Zigh in the Berber language), one of the semi-nomadic people who still inhabit large parts of the region today. While we don’t know the exact date, she was born in the early part of the 4th century CE.
She married a Roman called Patricius. Like many marriages today, hers was not a happy one. Patricius was an alcoholic and a violent man. While traditional biographies claim that he respected her virtue, these are not generally written from a woman’s point of view and we do not know what she had to suffer to maintain what was clearly an abusive relationship. Their differences were worsened by the fact that, while Monica was a Christian, Patricius was not and he refused to allow their children to be baptised. It seems that, despite living in a desperately unhappy relationship, she was herself able to harness that unhappiness and minister to other abused women in Tagaste. Eventually, as a result of her prayers and interventions (which must have taken considerable courage, especially in a time when Roman law allowed men to beat or kill their wives without reason), Patricius was converted to Christianity and baptised.
Monica’s name would become known to the world through one of those children who was refused baptism. Augustine, later bishop of Hippo and one of the most influential writers in the Church’s history, was a bright but very difficult young man. While he was a teenager, Patricius died. Augustine took a common law wife (with whom he had a son) and experimented with the then popular Manichaean religion – a hybrid between Christianity and Zoroastrianism. As a result, she expelled him and his wife from her house. While this causes us some unease today, it is a reminder that saints are people of their time as well. As a result of a vision in a dream, she later took him (but not his wife) back and prayed ceaselessly for his conversion. When he travelled to Italy to study philosophy she followed him in secret. Finally, as a result of his own interior journey and the preaching of the great St Ambrose of Milan, Augustine was converted and baptised in her presence in Milan. She died soon after and was buried in the Italian coastal town of Ostia in 387.
In some ways, St Monica is an example of the people moving behind the scenes and at the margins who allow others to reach their full potential. Her invisible ministries to the abused and her prayers for her son and husband had huge ripple effects which would be felt right down to this present day. They remind us that we move in much bigger circles than ourselves and that, if we work with God, we can do great things even when we seem to be working fruitlessly in the dark.
She married a Roman called Patricius. Like many marriages today, hers was not a happy one. Patricius was an alcoholic and a violent man. While traditional biographies claim that he respected her virtue, these are not generally written from a woman’s point of view and we do not know what she had to suffer to maintain what was clearly an abusive relationship. Their differences were worsened by the fact that, while Monica was a Christian, Patricius was not and he refused to allow their children to be baptised. It seems that, despite living in a desperately unhappy relationship, she was herself able to harness that unhappiness and minister to other abused women in Tagaste. Eventually, as a result of her prayers and interventions (which must have taken considerable courage, especially in a time when Roman law allowed men to beat or kill their wives without reason), Patricius was converted to Christianity and baptised.
Monica’s name would become known to the world through one of those children who was refused baptism. Augustine, later bishop of Hippo and one of the most influential writers in the Church’s history, was a bright but very difficult young man. While he was a teenager, Patricius died. Augustine took a common law wife (with whom he had a son) and experimented with the then popular Manichaean religion – a hybrid between Christianity and Zoroastrianism. As a result, she expelled him and his wife from her house. While this causes us some unease today, it is a reminder that saints are people of their time as well. As a result of a vision in a dream, she later took him (but not his wife) back and prayed ceaselessly for his conversion. When he travelled to Italy to study philosophy she followed him in secret. Finally, as a result of his own interior journey and the preaching of the great St Ambrose of Milan, Augustine was converted and baptised in her presence in Milan. She died soon after and was buried in the Italian coastal town of Ostia in 387.
In some ways, St Monica is an example of the people moving behind the scenes and at the margins who allow others to reach their full potential. Her invisible ministries to the abused and her prayers for her son and husband had huge ripple effects which would be felt right down to this present day. They remind us that we move in much bigger circles than ourselves and that, if we work with God, we can do great things even when we seem to be working fruitlessly in the dark.
