Monica

Monica was the mother of Augustine of Hippo — and the reason we have Augustine at all. For nearly thirty years she prayed for her brilliant, wayward son's conversion, following him from North Africa to Rome to Milan. When Augustine was finally baptized by Ambrose at Easter 387, Monica's life's work was complete. She died a few months later at Ostia, where she and Augustine shared a mystical experience of divine contemplation that Augustine records in the Confessions as one of the defining moments of his spiritual life.

Traditionally, Augustine records (Confessions IX.8-13) that Monica had originally wanted to be buried beside her husband in Africa. At Ostia, she said it no longer mattered — 'Nothing is far from God, and there is no fear that he will not know where to find me at the end of the world to raise me up.' This change from anxiety about burial place to spiritual indifference to earthly concerns marked, for Augustine, her final spiritual freedom.

Monica was born around 332 in Thagaste in Roman North Africa (modern Souk Ahras, Algeria). She was raised as a Christian and married Patricius, a pagan Roman official of modest means and difficult temperament. The marriage was unhappy — Patricius was unfaithful and violent — but Monica endured with patience and eventually secured his conversion shortly before his death around 371.

Her relationship with her eldest son Augustine was the great drama of her life. Augustine received Christian upbringing but abandoned the faith in his teenage years, embracing Manichaeism, taking a concubine, and pursuing worldly ambition. Monica's grief was intense and relentless. She prayed, wept, fasted, and sought help from bishops. One bishop, exasperated by her persistence, told her to go away, 'for it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish.'

When Augustine moved to Rome in 383, Monica followed. When she discovered he had gone to Milan, she pursued him. In Milan she came under the influence of Bishop Ambrose, whose preaching was drawing Augustine toward Christianity. In August 386, Augustine's conversion occurred — recounted in the Confessions with intimate detail. At Easter 387, he was baptized along with his son Adeodatus and friend Alypius.

Monica's joy was complete. At Ostia, waiting for a ship to Africa, mother and son stood at a window overlooking a garden and experienced what Augustine describes as a shared mystical ascent — rising through creation to touch, for a moment, eternal divine wisdom. Augustine records: 'We said: If to anyone the tumult of the flesh were to fall silent... if he were to hear him whom in all these things we love... this is what it would be like to enter into the joy of the Lord.'

Five days later, Monica fell ill with fever. She died around age 56. Her last words to Augustine and his brother were: 'Bury my body wherever you will; let not care of it cause you any concern. One thing only I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.'

• Confessor