NOVENA TO SAINTS MONICA AND AUGUSTINE – DAY 4 (FOR ALL THOSE CURRENTLY ABSENT FROM HOME OUT OF WAYWARDNESS OR STUBBORNNESS)

OPENING PRAYER TO SAINTS MONICA AND AUGUSTINE

(For the conversion and sanctification of ourselves and our loved ones)

Lord our God, ever merciful to all who hope in you, you adorned your servant Monica with the priceless gift of reconciling her husband and children to you; you listened to her fervent and continuous prayers calling Saint Augustine from the ways of error to serve you in holiness, making of him a sign in the world of the power of the grace of Christ and of the intercession of the saints on our behalf; renew, O Lord, in your Church and in our hearts the spirit you gave to Saint Augustine and Saint Monica; grant that in our thirst for true wisdom we and our loved ones may never cease to search for you, and may our hearts rest united in you, the living fountain of unending love. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

A SHORT MEDITATION ON THE LIVES OF SAINTS MONICA AND AUGUSTINE

(PART 4: ST. AUGUSTINE)

Hedonistic Early Life

St. Augustine (the most quintessential philosopher and theologian of the early medieval era) was born in Tagaste in Numidia (present-day Souk-Ahras in east Algeria) on November 13, 354. His father was a wealthy Berber landowner and pagan. His mother, the future St. Monica, was a devout Christian. His father’s hedonist ways had a strong influence on Augustine in his early life. Augustine forsook his Christian upbringing at age sixteen to attend school in Carthage, where he “dabbled with astrology.”

 Of Augustine’s intellectual achievement as a boy, his parents were intensely proud. He received his first education at Thagaste, learning, to read and write, as well as the rudiments of Greek and Latin literature, from teachers who followed the old traditional pagan methods. He seems to have had no systematic instruction in the Christian faith at this period. “His parents, delighted with their son’s progress in his studies, sent him first to the neighbouring Madaura, and then to Carthage, some two days’ journey away. A year’s enforced idleness on Augustine in order to acquire the means for his more expensive schooling proved to be a time of his moral deterioration.

When he began the study of rhetoric at Carthage, it is true that (in company with comrades whose ideas of pleasure were probably much grosser than his) he drank of the cup of sensual pleasure. Augustine became a womanizer, gambler, and critic of the virtues. He fathered a son from a mistress before he turned twenty, lived with her for 10 years out of wedlock, and then dumped her so he could marry a socialite. His son Adeodatus was born in the summer of 372, and it was probably the mother of Adeodatus whose gorgeousness enthralled him soon after his arrival at Carthage about the end of 370. But he remained faithful to her until about 385, and the grief which he felt at parting from her shows what the relationship had been. Monica, his mother seemed to have received Augustine’s child and his mother publicly at Thagaste. Augustine’s intellectual ambition prevented him from allowing his sexual desires to interfere and ruin his entire life. He was internally dissatisfied with his life. The Hortensius of Cicero (now lost with the exception of a few fragments) made a deep impression on him. To know the truth was henceforth his deepest wish. About the time when the contrast between his ideals and his actual life became intolerable, he learned to conceive of Christianity as the one religion which could lead him to the attainment of his ideal. But his pride of intellect held him back from embracing it earnestly; the Scriptures could not bear comparison with Cicero; he sought for wisdom, not for humble submission to authority.” (To be continued…)

Silent Prayer and Reflection…

EVERYDAY PRAYER TO SAINTS MONICA AND AUGUSTINE

INTERCESSIONS

• Lord, you gave Saint Monica the strength to overcome the difficulties of her marriage, help all spouses who experience trouble in their marriage to be a consolation to one another.
• Lord, you comforted Saint Monica in her prayer for the conversion of her son, help us not to despair in times of trial, and to place all our hope in you.
• Lord, you granted Saint Monica the grace of bringing her husband and her son to you, may all wives and mothers be instruments of your love in their families, so that they know how to lead their husbands and children to you.
• Lord, through a true conversion of heart you led Saint Augustine out of the depths of sin to your love, come to our heart, so that we will forget our sins and we will be embraced by you, our one and only good.
• Lord, you inflamed the hearts of Saint Monica and her son Saint Augustine so that they would aspire to heavenly things, may we also long for the supreme source of life.

Full of confidence we pray to our heavenly Father in the words Christ taught us. Our Father… Hail Mary (X3)… Glory be…

PRAYER OF PETITION

Blessed Saint Monica, please add your prayers to all those mothers who are concerned and worried about their children, especially those who have turned away from Christ and His Church. Take them under your protection and give them the courage to walk in the ways of the Lord despite the temptation and false values they find in today’s world. Please also, take my personal request to God for my loved ones with the same fervour and persistence with which you prayed for your own son. Amen. Blessed Saint Augustine, we entrust to your powerful intercession our hearts and those of our loved ones, so that we will all be faithful to the Love and Grace of God who invites us to conversion, to live and rest in Him, to live in the communion of love with all our brothers and sisters and to spread his love to all our neighbours. Amen.