Memorial of Saint Monica
Today is the feast of St. Monica and at Mass we begin reading from St. Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians. What Paul tells us here is that God is faithful. And Monica gives witness to the veracity of that statement.
She is always depicted carrying a small flask symbolizing the tears she shed in persevering prayers for the conversion of her errant son, Augustine. Eventually her prayers were heard and St. Augustine, whose feast we celebrate tomorrow, became one of the Church’s greatest saints, the man who drew up the blueprint for civil society that lasted almost 1000 years. God is faithful.
Monica and Augustine were natives of the geographical area today’s media happily designates as the world of “The Arab Second Spring”. Nowhere else in history have the diminishing number of Christians been more persecuted than here. So, what must it mean to them that God is faithful? Monica’s flask must be overflowing.
We who have been blessed with so many benefits, who are easily convinced of God’s fidelity, should join persevering prayers with Monica, and add our tears to her flask for our persecuted brothers and sisters in “The Arab Second Spring” nations, in the lands once blessed by the births of Saints Monica and Augustine.