St. Monica
Read time: 5.5 minutes
Many of us have family members and loved ones that have fallen away from the faith. Children and grandchildren who were raised in the faith and no longer practice it. There may be siblings, spouses and friends that have walked away for any number of reasons. Perhaps the most difficult one is to see a loved one who was on fire with love for Jesus to suddenly walk away or often the person gradually walks away from God and wakes up one morning and no longer even cares about what has happened.
What can we do? Pray like St. Monica who prayed for 17 years for the conversion of her son Augustine and was married to an abusive Roman pagan. Her husband converted a year before he died, and her son St. Augustine become a Saint and Doctor of the church.
Could St. Monica match her son’s intellectual ability and debate him on becoming a Christian? Or to convince her husband who hated Christianity so much and all that it stood for? Absolutely not. The only thing that she was able to do was to cling to Jesus. She abandoned herself completely to the Lord, her tears and supplications did not go unanswered.
Perhaps St. Monica kept asking herself what if I had been a better mother? What If… She realized that she could not change the past and the only thing she could do was to move forward and storm heaven with her prayers. Ultimately, we have no control over other people’s lives or their decisions.
St. Monica had a deep and personal encounter with Jesus. So, she prayed that her husband and her son would also one day have that life changing encounter. We need to pray that our loved ones will also have that personal and life changing encounter with Jesus.
She is a model for us who have loved ones that are separated from God. A model of perseverance, of hope, of faith and of love.
I have heard of support groups and prayer groups that have taken St. Monica as their patron. We don’t have to do this alone.
In the end the Lord wishes that all of our loved ones be saved, and He is the only one who can save. In fact, He wants to save those souls more than you want to save them.
Many years ago, a woman from New York called a well-known bishop to go visit her brother in the hospital who was dying of cancer. He did not want anyone to speak to him about God. The bishop thought about it and went to see him. When the bishop got there, the dying man told him to get out and never come back. But the bishop replied as he was leaving, I will come and visit you every night for 30 days. If by then you still feel the same way I will leave and never come back. For the first 7 days he kicked him out of the room and after 14 days he was allowed into the room, but the bishop was prohibited from speaking to him. As it was getting closer to the end of the 30 days, the bishop asked him if he would like to make his peace with God. “No, never” he replied. As he left, he asked the man to say these words Jesus Mercy. I will not, he replied. That night he received a call from the nurse to say that the man had passed away. The bishop asked “did he say anything before he died?
The nurse replied, all he kept saying over and over again was Jesus Mercy, Jesus Mercy…
Meditate on this passage from the prophet Jeremiah 31:16-17
Thus says the Lord:
“Keep your voice from weeping,
And your eyes from tears;
For your work shall be rewarded,
Says the Lord, and they shall
Come back from the land of the enemy.
There is hope for your future,
Says the Lord,
And your children shall come back
To their own country.”
St. Monica, Pray for us.