St. Monica

A Berber Christian of North Africa married to the pagan Patricius. For seventeen years she prayed for the conversion of her brilliant, rebellious son Augustine, following him from Carthage to Rome to Milan, where at last he was baptized by Ambrose. She died at Ostia weeks later, content. Augustine wrote of her in the ninth book of his Confessions in passages of unsurpassed tenderness.

Monica endured not only her son's waywardness but a difficult marriage to a man of violent temper who did not share her faith. Through patience and prayer she won over both Patricius, who was baptized before his death, and her mother-in-law, who had been hostile to her. St. Ambrose admired her deeply, and it was partly through Monica's friendship with the bishop that Augustine found his way to the Church.

At Ostia, shortly before her death, mother and son shared a mystical experience gazing from a window, touching for a moment the eternal wisdom of God. She told Augustine she no longer cared where she was buried — only that he remember her at the altar of the Lord. Her relics rest today in the Church of Sant'Agostino in Rome, and she is patron of mothers and of all who pray for the conversion of their children.