St.Monica.

Mother’s upbringing and example

What is hidden behind the word mother?

The man says that she is his life guide, the one who takes care of his household children, cleans laundry, helps him raise children, and the like.

The children will say: She is the one who gave me life, who takes care of me both spiritually and materially, who loves me more than herself, and so on.

Society will say that the mother is the legal representative of the child and the first person close to the child.

The Church says about the mother that she is the one who gives not only physical life but also spiritual life. He takes care of both earthly and eternal education.

Today, on the feast of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, we read about a widowed mother from the town of Naim whose only Son, who was already dead, was resurrected by Jesus.

What the Naima woman felt when she accompanied her dead Son, only a mother who has already experienced this pain from the death of a child knows best. When Jesus met her, his heart trembled and moved with compassion, and he said: “Don’t cry!” (Lk 7:13). This event is described by the evangelist Luke, who is the only one to explain things, and it is assumed that he got them from the Virgin Mary. Mary also knew pain as she stood under the cross at the death of her Son.

Don’t cry! These words are relevant many times, even today, not in the physical death of the mothers’ sons, but even more so in the mental death. Who will count the number of tears of mothers when their sons are physically healthy, but their souls are not healthy?! When sin made their soul’s dead souls. The mother sees her Son healthy, and his soul is dead for eternity. The mother who brought him into the world and wants him to be with her in eternity when she sees how her Son rejects eternal life is the most unhappy Catholic mother. This pain is much greater than the pain of a mother’s Son dying physically. She knows that he died reconciled to God and has hope of meeting him with God. But what about the death of the soul? We had the holiday of St. Ludovic. His mother, Saint Blanca, often told him: – I would rather see you physically dead than with one grave sin. – How sad it is to meet mothers indifferent to their sons’ souls. How painful it is when a mother still advises her child to sin when she encourages him to sin, when she defends his sin, and so on.

This does not match Saint Monica’s behavior. Someone will say that he knows everything about her:

• How she endured wrongs from her mother-in-law.

• She also talks about how she helped her husband find peace of mind.

• How she prayed for her Son Augustín for sixteen years.

It’s a shame they know it but don’t follow her example. They would know what a wonderful feeling it is to wait for death. She died in Ostia, near Rome, far from her native Carthage. However, she died in the arms of her Son, no longer an errant Manichean, but the Son of a priest and a bishop.

Today’s world needs new Monicas. We need women, mothers, and brides who look not only with the eyes of the body at the people around them but also with the eyes of faith. It is beautiful when a woman, mother, and daughter-in-law knows how to take her place in the house, family, and society. It is valuable when such a woman knows how to defend her place even before the community of believers – the Church, especially before her conscience and God. St. Monica today teaches modern women an old but still modern Christian principle: Let us live so that none of us will be separated on the last day. Today, it is appropriate for women, mothers, and brides to pray to St. Monica for the virtues and graces with which she excelled. Today, sons, husbands, and parents-in-law should pray for their mothers, wives, and daughters-in-law that God bless them with the virtues that Saint Monica abounded in. And then today’s holiday will fulfill its role.

Saint Monica, mother, wife, and daughter-in-law, pray for us!