Mothers can be the Heart of Family Restoration

Today is the Feast Day of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo, perhaps the greatest of the church fathers of organized Christianity.  To know anything about Augustine one reads his earliest seminal work Confessions, known as one of the greatest Christian works of all time and referred to as “an odyssey of the soul.” This autobiographical account of life before Christ living in sin and debauchery, and thereafter in seeking God for a lifetime, explains how his mother, Monica, prayed earnestly for decades for her son’s turn to Christ.  

A doggedly persistent woman, Monica went so far as to entreat the Bishop of the time over and over and over again.  Augustine writes, “Finally, the Bishop a little vexed at her importunity, exclaimed, ‘Be on your way, as you live, it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish.’  As she often told me afterward, she accepted this answer as though it were a voice from heaven.” (Confessions, Book 3:12:21) 

A tenacious prayer for her son’s salvation led to his ultimate restoration in Christ at his mid-life.  Monica had the joy of watching his development into a godly man for the ages who is a guide to this day for spiritual wisdom and insight.

Are you a praying mother of wayward children?  Don’t give up.  Are you a child of a praying mother?  Hear God.  Augustine’s mother Monica illuminates the path of prayer that is often the heart of family restoration.