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Last Wednesday, I attended the monthly Augustinian formation for all the personnel in our University. I came in late that afternoon because I was busy fixing some errands for the intramural last week. There were no classes the whole week, but there are lots of activities in the campus, so all personnel are all busy just the same. Plus, I was appointed as one of the coordinators for the Ginoo at Binibining Kalikasan (Mr. & Ms. Environment) that Thursday and happy of the result because our department’s male rep won the Ginoo and our female contestant won a special award (photos and stories will be posted later).

Anyways, the Wednesday event coincided with the Feast Day of St. Monica on 27 August. She is the mother of St. Augustine. St. Monica is the patron saint of wives and mothers. Since I am now currently teaching in a Catholic university being ran by Augustinian Sisters, attendance to the Augustinian formations is a must. This monthly assembly may sound boring, but I appreciated the talk about St. Monica and I know many mothers and wives could relate to her life story and will be inspired by her faith.

St. Monica is a wife to an adulterous pagan husband known for his temper and she had a difficult mother-in-law living with them. Hmmm, sounds very common even nowadays, right? St. Monica could have been a nagger and a bitter daughter-in-law, however, she refused to be but rather prayed hard for her husband and monster, este, mother-in-law. According to her life story, although his husband Patricius had a violent temper, he respected St. Monica because of her devoutness. Over time, because of her meekness, humility and incessant prayers, Patricius and her mother-in-law were converted to Christianity and the relationship of the couple developed into a warm, spiritual one.

St. Augustine was her first born, whom she learned was living an immoral life. She chose to stay close to her son and prayed and fasted for him for 17 years! Eventually, because of her persistence and not giving up on him, St. Augustine and some of his friends were baptized to Catholicism. Soon after St. Augustine converted, St. Monica become ill and she knew her life was near the end. She told Augustine, “Son, nothing in this world now affords me delight. I do not know what there is now left for me to do or why I am still here, all my hopes in this world being now fulfilled.” St. Monica died that same year St. Augustine was baptized.

When I heard of her life story, I remembered my nanay. Nope, my father is not abusive, actually I never heard them fight and they never shouted at each other (or at least I never saw even one incident when I was growing up). I think, their relationship is perfect and I hope Albert and me can emulate that. But like St. Monica, my nanay was not liked much by my tatay’s sisters and my lolo because she never even finished her elementary while my tatay was already a math teacher when they eloped. Though my father said my lola was always good to her from the very start. Eventually, my aunts and lolo were able to accept my mom because she’s really good-natured and she never fought back against them.

Similarly, being a mother myself now, I could feel her hardships in raising us. I know it’s hard to raise 3 kids and surely, there were many problems along the way. Whenever we had family problems specially financial, I never saw my mother become bitter and I never heard her complain. Even in many difficult situations, she could even manage to smile and see the good in everything that’s happening.

Growing up, my problem was my nanay’s problem, too. And she always prayed for me and all my other 2 siblings, specially when we were all going through many difficult times. She may not always hear the Sunday mass regularly, but she often went to church to pray and had her novena. My nanay passed away in 2004, aged 53, but I know she’s fulfilled like St. Monica when she died.

I think all of us, not just mothers and wives, should be like St. Monica. Of course, we all are in different circumstances, but whatever is the status of our lives right now — whether we are in a difficult relationship, we have a wayward child, or any problem/difficult person bothering us — St. Monica showed us that non-stop faith will transform anyone to a better person and there’s no impossible endeavor to persistence and faith!

GOD BLESS EVERYONE!

               

Related posts:

The MOTHER

ODE TO MY MOTHER

GOD’s WINGS

50 MOTHER QUOTES

How was your MOMS’ DAY?

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 10:24 pm and is filed under Inspirationals . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.