Biography of St. Monica

[Br. Nick, OP]

Here is a bit of information about St. Monica. Feel free to add
anything else you find.

Bio #1 (the short)

St. Monica was married by arrangement to a pagan official in North
Africa, who was much older than she, and although generous, was also
violent tempered. His mother Lived with them and was equally
difficult, which proved a constant challenge to St. Monica. She had
three children; Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua. Through her
patience and prayers, she was able to convert her husband and his
mother to the Catholic faith in 370· He died a year later. Perpetua
and Navigius entered the religious Life. St. Augustine was much more
difficult, as she had to pray for him for 17 years, begging the
prayers of priests who, for a while, tried to avoid her because of her
persistence at this seemingly hopeless endeavor. One priest did
console her by saying, "it is not possible that the son of so many
tears should perish." This thought, coupled with a vision that she had
received strengthened her. St. Augustine was baptized by St. Ambrose
in 387. St. Monica died later that same year, on the way back to
Africa from Rome in the Italian town of Ostia.

Bio #2 (longer - from the Catholic Encyclopedia at newadvent.org)

Widow; born of Christian parents at Tagaste, North Africa, in 333;
died at Ostia, near Rome, in 387.

We are told but little of her childhood. She was married early in life
to Patritius who held an official position in Tagaste. He was a pagan,
though like so many at that period, his religion was no more than a
name; his temper was violent and he appears to have been of dissolute
habits. Consequently Monica's married life was far from being a happy
one, more especially as Patritius's mother seems to have been of a
like disposition with himself. There was of course a gulf between
husband and wife; her almsdeeds and her habits of prayer annoyed him,
but it is said that he always held her in a sort of reverence. Monica
was not the only matron of Tagaste whose married life was unhappy,
but, by her sweetness and patience, she was able to exercise a
veritable apostolate amongst the wives and mothers of her native town;
they knew that she suffered as they did, and her words and example had
a proportionate effect.

Three children were born of this marriage, Augustine the eldest,
Navigius the second, and a daughter, Perpetua. Monica had been unable
to secure baptism for her children, and her grief was great when
Augustine fell ill; in her distress she besought Patritius to allow
him to be baptized; he agreed, but on the boy's recovery withdrew his
consent. All Monica's anxiety now centred in Augustine; he was wayward
and, as he himself tells us, lazy. He was sent to Madaura to school
and Monica seems to have literally wrestled with God for the soul of
her son. A great consolation was vouchsafed her — in compensation
perhaps for all that she was to experience through Augustine —
Patritius became a Christian. Meanwhile, Augustine had been sent to
Carthage, to prosecute his studies, and here he fell into grievous
sin. Patritius died very shortly after his reception into the Church
and Monica resolved not to marry again. At Carthage Augustine had
become a Manichean and when on his return home he ventilated certain
heretical propositions she drove him away from her table, but a
strange vision which she had urged her to recall him. It was at this
time that she went to see a certain holy bishop, whose name is not
given, but who consoled her with the now famous words, "the child of
those tears shall never perish." There is no morepathetic story in the
annals of the Saints than that of Monica pursuing her wayward son to
Rome, wither he had gone by stealth; when she arrived he had already
gone to Milan, but she followed him. Here she found St. Ambrose and
through him she ultimately had the joy of seeing Augustine yield,
after seventeen years of resistance. Mother and son spent six months
of true peace at Cassiacum, after which time Augustine was baptized in
the church of St. John the Baptist at Milan. Africa claimed them
however, and they set out on their journey, stopping at Cività Vecchia
and at Ostia. Here death overtook Monica and the finest pages of his
"Confessions" were penned as the result of the emotion Augustine then
experienced.

St. Monica was buried at Ostia, and at first seems to have been almost
forgotten, though her body was removed during the sixth century to a
hidden crypt in the church of St. Aureus. About the thirteenth
century, however, the cult of St. Monica began to spread and a feast
in her honour was kept on 4 May. In 1430 Martin V ordered the relics
to be brought to Rome. Many miracles occurred on the way, and the
cultus of St. Monica was definitely established. Later the Archbishop
of Rouen, Cardinal d'Estouteville, built a church at Rome in honour of
St. Augustine and deposited the relics of St. Monica in a chapel to
the left of the high altar. The Office of St. Monica however does not
seem to have found a place in the Roman Breviary before the sixteenth
century.

In 1850 there was established at Notre Dame de Sion at Paris an
Association of Christian mothers under the patronage of St. Monica;
its object was mutual prayer for sons and husbands who had gone
astray. This Association was in 1856 raised to the rank of an
archconfraternity and spread rapidly over all the Catholic world,
branches being established in Dublin, London, Liverpool, Sydney, and
Buenos Aires. Eugenius IV had established a similar Confraternity long
before.