27 August 2019
Memorial of Saint Monica
The 1streading gives a template to those who want to preach the Word of God. Not an easy job, but Paul reminded his converts he was “as gentle among you, as a nursing mother,” Then, in today’s Gospel Jesus condemns those scribes and Pharisees who are “Blind guides.” Finally, today is the feast of St. Monica. What an interesting combination.
Monica had once been a nursing mother for her son St. Augustine, and by patience and prayers, in contrast with the policy of scribes and Pharisees, she guided him to the Lord. Gentle and loving is the formula for so many mothers today, who watch with tears their sons and daughters taking the same road that led Augustine far from God.
Suffer as they do, their presence in the Church is a great blessing as well as a reminder for us to join our prayers with theirs. In our age of the “Dictatorship of Relativism”, blind guides, teachers of young Augustines, even in so-called Catholic schools, have made such parents as Monica omnipresent.
In union with St. Monica, and the convert son she loved as a nursing mother all of her life, we join our prayers today, begging God for his special love for our contemporary Monicas, and grace for their errant Augustines.