What Is The Significance Of Saint Monica Weeping In Catholicism?

Posted by Sebrina Pilcher on Tuesday, May 7, 2024

While a mother's love can be an endless source of hope, it can also bring pain when children fail. Monica's eldest son, Augustine, born in A.D. 354, would be the centerpiece of Monica's worries. After Patricius died in 371, Augustine rejected his mother's Christian beliefs in favor of sensual pleasures (via Dominicana). Augustine had multiple romances with married women and even sired a son outside of wedlock, whereas his widowed mother had renounced all earthly pleasures and regularly aided the needy. Augustine's infidelities would make Monica's heartache and sorrow even more intense. Yet in a dream, Monica foresaw her wayward son returning to God. With unwavering faith, she prayed for her eldest son's return to the faith for 17 long years. Augustine would later reflect, ”Monica shed more tears for my spiritual death, than others mothers shed for the bodily death of a son” (via ”Confessions” by St. Augustine, posted at the Internet Archive).

Eventually, Augustine would forsake his frivolous ways and moved to Milan to study rhetoric, accompanied by Monica. Many accounts depict the two becoming close while intensely studying scripture and philosophy. However, Augustine would still be tempted by ”desires of the flesh” and struggled to change. 

Later, Augustine claimed to have heard a voice telling him to check the holy text he had taken with him after seeking solace in a garden. In it, Augustine found a passage from St. Paul illustrating how carnal desires work against one's faith. Augustine, now a reformed man, returned to his mother and told her about his revelations. Monica praised God for bringing her son back to a pious path (per ”Confessions”).

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