Feast of St. Monica.

Saint Monica of Hippo.
Patron of Wives and Abused Victims

Saint Monica was born in 322 at Tagaste in northern Africa, precisely, present day Algeria. She was born of Christian parents and raised in piety. At the age of 20, she was given in marriage to a man SQPN describes as “a bad-tempered, adulterous pagan named Patricius”.
Monica suffered much at the hands of this “rough and angry” man as Saint Augustine describes is father in his book -the Confessions of Saint Augustine. The copy I have and love, is a very, very simplified and shortened copy by Father Malachy Cullen O.S.A. for Saint Paul Publications- Africa. I would like to quote from it a paragraph which gives some insight into the life Monica had with her husband Patricius:

Quote
My father was Patricius, a pagan and a rough and angry man. My mother Monica was a Christian, one of the sweetest and best of women. At that time, husbands often used to beat their wives. When the wives came to draw water at the well, they used to cry and show one another the marks of their beatings. They wondered why my mother never had any marks to show. They said , “ Monica, your husband is a very angry kind of man and he commits adultery with other women. Yet you never quarrel and he never beats you. Why is this?”
My mother answered, “the one thing I want is peace in our home. I know that he follows other women but I do not abuse him. When he is angry with me, I am silent. I just pray to God in my heart until he has finished shouting. Later on when he is quiet, I tell him why I did this or that. That is my secret”
Wow! What a woman!
They had three children. Augustine, Navigius and Perpetua, with Augustine being the eldest child, the first born.
Through her patience and prayers, she was able to convert Patricius who reportedly converted on his death bed. Patricius mother also converted at the same time as his son.
Patricius died in 371, one year after his conversion.
Following the death of her husband, Augustine, her eldest son, became her sole preoccupation. When Augustine was seventeen, he went to study at Carthage. From that time, he abandoned God, embracing Manichaeism instead, and living altogether, a wayward life that included a mistress.
Monica prayed earnestly for Saint Augustine’s conversion. Her hope and consolation were the words of a Bishop she had turned to and begged "with floods of tears” to talk to her son. This is what the Bishop reportedly said to her:
“ It is impossible that the son of so many tears will be lost.”
Indeed Saint Augustine himself talks of his mothers tears in the book mentioned above when he was describing his mother’s prayers on his behalf: Here is how he described it:
Quote
“ She prayed for me at Mass every morning and at Evening Prayer and at every hour of the day. When she prayed, she used to lie flat on the ground and press her face against it and water it with her tears. And you of God of mothers, did not despise her tears.”
Monica followed Augustine to Rome in 383 and then to Milan in 386 where in 387, he was baptized at Easter.
She lived with Augustus and his son, Adeodatus.
Her mission successfully accomplished, Monica was on her trip to Africa but she died at Ostia, Italy in 387 as they were awaiting a ship to take them back to Africa.
Monica is the patroness of married women and is regarded as a model for Christian mothers.
Saint Monica,
Pray for us!
Amen, this post first appeared on August 27, 2011, by Odhiambo.