What we know about Saint Monica comes to us from the writings of her son, Saint Augustine.

Augustine and Monica were very close, although, like so many families, children and parents don't always see eye to eye.

Sometimes there are disagreements and conflicts in the best of families.

Monica was born around the year 332 in the Tagaste region of North Africa and was raised as a Christian. When she became of age her parents arranged a marriage for her to Patricius, a pagan man with a violent disposition. He lived with his equally unpleasant mother. Monica was patient with them both and treated them kindly.

Patricius did not care for Christians, nor would he allow his children to be baptized, in spite of the please of Monica; however, he allowed her to practice her faith as she wished.'

She prayed for his conversion for thirty years and her prayers finally won him over. He was finally baptized a year before his death, when Augustine was 17 years old.

Augustine was brilliant, but like his father, was not impressed with his mother's faith, nor did he want to be baptized.

He was sent to Carthage to study and become a man of culture; however, he was more in favor of being in the company of his carousing companions and women of questionable morals.

He also embraced the popular heresy of Manichaeism, so that when he came home, Monica refused to allow him to eat at the same table with her and actually threw him out of her house.

Monica wept and prayed for her son constantly. One day as she was weeping over his behavior, a figure appeared and asked her the cause of her grief. She answered, and a voice issued from the mysterious figure, telling her to dry her tears; then she heard the words, "Your son is with you." Monica related this story to Augustine, and he replied that they might easily be together if she gave up her faith, for that was the main obstacle keeping them apart. Quickly she retorted, "He did not say I was with you: he said that you were with me." Augustine was impressed by the quick answer and never forgot it.

She went to the Bishop and poured her heart out to him. He advised her to be patient: "God's time will come." Monica persisted, and the bishop uttered the words which have often been quoted: "Go now, I beg you; it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish."

Augustine was twenty-nine and a successful teacher when he decided to go to Rome. Monica opposed the move, but he went on with his plan, and set off with his young mistress and little son Adeodatus for the seaport.

His mother followed him there, and when he saw that she intended to accompany him, he tricked her by telling her the wrong time for departure. He embarked while she was spending the night praying in a church.

Although this grieved her deeply, Monica was still not discouraged about her wayward son, for she continued on to Rome by herself.

On reaching Rome, Monica learned that her son had continued on to Milan. There he went to hear the preaching of the great Bishop and saint, Ambrose.

At first he went only to hear Ambrose's eloquent style of speaking. But the Bishop's preaching led Augustine to a new understanding of the Bible and the Christian Faith.

Some time in the year 386, Augustine and his friend Alypius were spending time in Milan. While outdoors, Augustine heard the voice of a child singing a song, the words of which were, "Pick it up and read it. Pick it up and read it." He thought at first that the song was related to some kind of children's game, but could not remember ever having heard such a song before.

Then, realizing that this song might be a command from God to open and read the Scriptures, he located a Bible, picked it up, opened it and read the first passage he saw. It was from the Letter of Paul to the Romans. Augustine read:

Not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual excess and lust, not in quarreling and jealousy. Rather, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh. --Romans 13: 13-14

Reading this scripture, Augustine felt as if his heart were flooded with light. He turned totally from his life of sin. He was Baptized by Ambrose during the Easter Vigil April 24, 387. His friend Alypius and his son Adeodatus were Baptized at the same time.

At Easter, when Bishop Ambrose baptized Augustine, his mother's joy was full to overflowing. Her prayers were finally answered.

Augustine and the members of his family now set out for their return to Tagaste; however, at the port of Ostia, Monica fell ill. She knew that her work had been accomplished and that life would soon be over. Although she was ill, her joy and determination kept her sons unaware of this until the approach of death.

As Monica's strength failed, she said to Augustine: "I do not know what there is left for me to do or why I am still here, all my hopes in this world being now fulfilled. All I wished for was that I might see you a Catholic and a child of Heaven. God granted me even more than this in making you despise earthly felicity and consecrate yourself to His service."

Shortly afterwards they asked her if she did not fear to die so far from home, for she had earlier expressed a desire to be buried beside her husband in Tagaste. Now, with beautiful simplicity, she replied, "Nothing is far from God," and indicated that she was content to be buried where she died.

Monica's death plunged her children into the deepest grief, and Augustine, "the son of so many tears," in his book 'Confessions' implores his readers' prayers for his parents.

“If any one thinks it wrong that I thus wept for my mother some small part of an hour – a mother who for many years had wept for me that I might live to thee, O Lord – let him not deride me. But if his charity is great, let him weep also for my sins before thee.” - Saint Augustine

It is the prayers of Monica herself that have been invoked by generations of the faithful who honor her as a special patroness of married women and as an example for Christian motherhood.

Her funeral epitaph survived in ancient manuscripts and the stone it was originally written on was discovered in the church of Santa Aurea in 1945.

Douglas Boin translated the tablet's Latin to read:

"Here the most virtuous mother of a young man set her ashes, a second light to your merits, Augustine.

As a priest, serving the heavenly laws of peace, you taught the people entrusted to you with your character. A glory greater than the praise of your accomplishments crowns you both - Mother of the Virtues, more fortunate because of her offspring."