Today is the feast day of St Monica, the mother of St Augustine. We are all familiar with the story of how St Monica pursued her son’s conversion with tears, prayers, and sacrifice. Augustine tells us that Monica wept for him more than mothers weep for the bodily death of their children. (Confessions III.11) Her prayer was not passive. She carried the salvation of her son before God with persistence. With suffering. She refused to stop hoping in grace. St Augustine records St Monica saying in his book, Confessions.
For my part, my son, I no longer find pleasure in anything that this life holds. What I am doing here still, or why I am still here, I do not know, for worldly hope has withered away for me. One thing only there was for which I desired to linger in this life: to see you a Catholic Christian before I died. And my God has granted this to me more lavishly than I could have hoped, letting me see even you spurning earthly happiness to be his servant. What am I still doing here?
Love is laying down one’s life for another. Life, with all its promises and material gain, is empty when it is not resting in the heart of Jesus. Monica’s great mission was to offer herself, in union with Christ, through prayer and sacrifice, for Augustine’s conversion. When God granted this, her mission was complete.
God calls all of us to enter into this sort of mission on behalf of those we love. You could call this a cruciform evangelization because it demands the giving of our life for another. This is the life of Christ and what he calls us to. When those we love return to him, we will be able to say with St Monica, “What am I still doing here?”
© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.
Particularly memorable line: "my God has granted this to me more lavishly than I could have hoped."