A Mother's heartache

She was a good woman, devoted to her Christian faith.

Her husband, on the other hand, was a violent and irreligious man. Even her son, a very bright boy whom she loved so very much, went a totally different direction from her faith.

She prayed for her son. He got involved in cults. She prayed harder. He got his girlfriend pregnant. His mother wept and wept before the Lord. He was contemptuous of the ignorant people who shared her faith. She kept on praying.

In the Lord’s own time and in the Lord’s own way, the Lord answered her prayer. Her son not only accepted the Catholic faith and was baptized, he became a bishop and a very famous theologian. The day she died she was in pain but happy as they spoke together and shared their faith in the glories they would share in heaven.

St. Monica, mother of St. Augustine, died in her mid-fifties in the year 387.