Every year, when their feastdays are here, I try to read more and learn more about them — whom I call, fondly, “the unbeatable duo”. More and more I am reminded by St. Monica’s example of how we should always pray for our children’s spiritual well-being. We often pray for our children’s safety, their health, their little successes here on earth. But more than all of these, our primary concern needs to be their souls. I sometimes mention to friends and family how our homeschooling goals evolved as we went on. From wishing for and working towards worldly success for our children in the beginning, we eventually came to understand that our purpose here on earth is to lead them to one goal, and one goal alone: life with Jesus Christ in His Eternal Kingdom. Having that as the goal changes SO MUCH — what we teach them, what we allow as influences into their lives, how we conduct ourselves as parents and as a family, how we try to infuse their lives with much love and understanding, the kind of knowledge that will last longer than knowledge of algebraic equations and lists of world leaders and global events, how to offer up suffering, how to live everything with joy (I’m still working on that one myself!) … I am grateful, on this day especially, for the examples of Mama Mary, who daily lived with Jesus the Great Sacrifice, and for saints like Monica, who tirelessly prayed for her son’s salvation. These two women practiced the virtue of holy detachment, and boy, do I need to look to them and learn this virtue as well. The learning is long 🙂

From Confessions of Saint Augustine — in which Monica talks to her son a few days before she died:

“Son, as far as I am concerned, nothing in this life now gives me any pleasure. I do not know why I am still here, since I have no further hopes in this world. I did have one reason for wanting to live a little longer: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died. God has lavished his gifts on me in that respect, for I know that you have even renounced earthly happiness to be his servant. So what am I doing here?”

… and oh, this beautiful passage from St. Augustine himself, one of my favorites:

“Late, 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 fr 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.”

What lovely, lovely words to meditate on.