“Nothing is far from God” St. Monica
St. Monica has been a favorite of mine for the past 10 years or so.
Who was St. Monica:
A tenacious prayer warrior, Monica followed her wayward son, Augustine, all over the place, praying for him and encouraging him with all of her strength. Even when he fell into a life of sin, she never gave up. Eventually, her prayers were heard and St. Augustine changed his life. In time he became a priest, bishop and eventually a great doctor of the church.
Why does she matter today?
When you have adult children, you have to find a different way to parent them. You can’t put them in time out, or send them to bed without a cookie. I can’t even threaten to turn off cell phone service because they pay their own! You are no longer their teacher, comforter, best friend or companion.
But you’re not nothing either. You aer still their mother.
Monica knew this, and she knew that her son’s very salvation depended on how much she was able to pray for him and convince him to live a better life. Monica’s example is one of persevereance for us.
Being a mother changes you.
The very presence of my babies in my womb changed my body from that of a woman to that of a mother. No amount of exercise or dieting will ever erase the stretch marks or the loose skin. In fact, cells left over from each pregnancy will be with me for the rest of my life.
Biologically at even the cellular level, children are always part of the mother. My brain is literally, swimming in the particles of my children. Besides the biological let’s remember the rest of motherood – all of the sleepless nights, the worries, the late night vomit cleanups, chauffeuring, feeding, nurturing and teaching that I spent the better part of two decades doing.
That’s what they are to me.
What am I to them? And does that even matter anymore?
I think the answer to that is, yes of course it matters.
And that’s why St. Monica’s example is still so important for us moms today. Today I suppose we would call such a woman a nag, or worse. It certainly isn’t the fashion to follow grown children around and encourage them on their Christian walk. But that’s what Monica did and it paid off. I take a lot of heart in that.
It seems that in our culture the emphasis is on pushing the kids out of the nest as soon as they graduate from high school. We pretend that somehow magically getting that high school diploma or moving to a college campus automatically transforms teens into wise adults who are totally self-sufficient and don’t need much from their parents anymore (other than regular checks and use of the laundry).
Yet even the colleges themselves don’t seem to believe that. Noah’s college, for all of its rhetoric about the adulthood of their students, assigned them the classes they should take this fall, and also demanded that its freshman athletes log and document their study time. Doesn’t seem like they are being trusted as adults to me.
Keeping the faith as an adult child.
The transition from teen to adult is a tricky one in our culture. It’s hard to make that jump gracefully. Even harder for many to make it and keep their Catholic faith intact. And surprisingly for me, it seems to be just as hard if not harder for kids who have been homeschooled most or all of their lives than for kids who attended public or parochial schools. I base that on my own experience with my three oldest sons and with some of the stuff I’ve been seeing on Facebook the last few years from young people I watched growing up in our Catholic homeschool community.
Just recently my son saw an old homeschooling friend at a local bar. The friend asked him, “Hey are you still Catholic?”
My son replied, “Yeah, aren’t you?”
“Oh F@&$ no.”
I have written before that I was not entirely pleased with the way my oldest adult children started living their lives. Mr. Pete and I had a lukewarm faith in our early 20s and we had hoped to spare our children from those years in the desert, but it didn’t turn out that way for the first three. We saw the desert; they apparently saw Vegas.
But that’s started to turn around. Five out of six of my children are regular church goers now, and the one that’s a little lacsidasical about it is open to church and will attend with the family.
That’s a big change over the past couple of years.
And now three of my four sons have been married in the Catholic Church.
It took St. Monica years and years to get results – so I remain hopeful.
I remember being 18, 19 and 20 years old and although I thought I knew a lot, I realize in retrospect that I didn’t know very much. My mom was a very steady presence in my early adult years and even more so in my late 30s and 40s when she helped with the homeschooling, gave her help and opinion on our home school, or even when she just called me every day to see how I was or to share some chit chat. I still miss her greatly.
The church really does see a place for moms who take that vocation seriously right on up through adulthood, for the sake of the souls of her children. It reiterates that motherhood is a lifelong commitment, one that doesn’t end on the 18th or 21st birthday.
Father Lawrence Lew via Flickr licensed via cc
So now I understand why mom kept checking in on me, even in my 30s and 40s. And I totally understand and appreciate that even when she was dying she wanted me to know how much she loved me – and we told each other that over and over and over again in the week before her death.
I think mom knew that I might have regrets later. That was her way of reaffirming to me that to her, it didn’t matter – it was the love she wanted me to keep!
You’re never too old to take advice and love from your mom either! And I am grateful to my own mom who embodied that, although I couldn’t always see it at the time.
St. Monica, pray for us.
Patron saint of Alcoholics, Married women, Mothers
For more information:
Charlotte at Waltzing Matilda has created these coloring pages:St. Monica
Charlotte also has a link to a tasty Algerian dish to celebrate the feast with!
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for further reading:
A modern St. Monica type story – The Michael Voris conversion story.
If you have a child who has left the faith, check out these resources from Brandon Vogt. I am not an affiliate but I have his book and videos. They are very helpful.
We will consider our son as an adult when he is completely on his own.
Our son went away to school 24 hours away to a Jesuit University and graduated in May. As an undergraduate, he lived in campus housing which was our requirement since we were footing the bill. His junior year he was disgruntled that we would not allow him to live off campus in a house with 5 people. 4 months later, he thanked us…
He is now a full time graduate student and living in an apartment. He usually texts us everyday and when he doesn't, that is OK. We learned that he does not like 100 questions so we choose wisely. He prefers that we do not give advice unless he seeks it.
We don't consider him as a "full adult" as we are paying for his education. We respect his privacy but he knows what we will not tolerate…
I too, pray the St. Monica novena and her statue is at my bedside.
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