Family patrons

This day, this date on the calendar, is huge for me. So I want to extend my personal expression of appreciation for the great St. Augustine and his mother, St. Monica. Yesterday was her memorial, today is his. Pope Benedict pointed out that they still offer great relief for families, in this account from Catholic News Agency.

“How many difficulties are there in families even today and how many mothers are distressed because their children are taking the wrong paths!”

I probably hear this lament several times a week, nearly every week. It’s even in a lot of news stories. Of course, Benedict knows that.

“Monica, a woman who is wise and solid in the faith, invites them not to be discouraged but to persevere in their mission as wives and mothers, maintaining a firm faith in God and holding on to prayer.”

She is the model of prayerful perseverence if ever there was one. She is the “never, ever give up!” answer so many of us reach for when encouraging someone in tears over an unrepentant, wayward loved one. Augustine was brilliant, but extremely fond of wayward pleasures and adventures.

In adolescence, attracted by worldly goods and beauty, his actions were guided by egoism and possessiveness. His actions would cause great pain to his mother. But along his journey, and thanks to the grace of his mother’s prayers, he continued to open himself up more to the fullness of truth and love to the point of conversion, the Pope recounted.

Augustine didn’t do anything moderately in his life. He had great passion and a great mind, and once he turned both toward God, his brilliance was unleashed.

As for Augustine, his whole existence was a passionate search for truth, the Pope continued. In the end, not without a long interior struggle, he discovered in Christ the full and ultimate meaning of his life and of all of human history.
 

Conversion is awesome, and I certainly don’t want to refer to conversions in degrees. But Augustine’s was especially powerful and consequential. His account of it in “The Confessions of St. Augustine” should be read by absolutely everyone. And then read again. It is a masterpiece.

One of my favorite prayers comes from the depth of this Confession, as Augustine addresses the unfathomable light of Christ and erupts with this expression of love. The sublime beauty and eloquence of this prayer is, to me, breathtaking.

O eternal truth, true love and beloved eternity. You are my God. To you do I sigh day and night. When I first came to know you, you drew me to yourself so that I might see that there were things for me to see, but that I myself was not yet ready to see them. Meanwhile you overcame the weakness of my vision, sending forth most strongly the beams of your light, and I trembled at once with love and dread…

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

Amen.