Monica of Hippo

Monica of Hippo ( – 387), also written as "Monnica", was an early North African Christian saint and the mother of Saint Augustine. She is remembered and honored in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, albeit on different feast days, for her outstanding Christian virtues, particularly the suffering caused by her husband's adultery, and her prayerful life dedicated to the reformation of her son, who wrote extensively of her pious acts and life with her in his Confessions. Popular Christian legends recall Monica weeping every night for her son Augustine.

Life Monica is most likely to have been born in Thagaste (present-day Souk Ahras, Algeria). She is believed to have been a Berber on the basis of her name. She was married early in life to Patricius, a decurion pagan, in Thagaste. Patricius reportedly had a violent temper and appears to have been of dissolute habits; apparently his mother exhibited similar behaviours. Monica's almsgiving, deeds and prayer habits annoyed Patricius, but it is said that he always held her in respect. When she moved to Milan, the bishop Ambrose forbade her to use the offering of wine, since "it might be an occasion of gluttony for those who were already given to drink". So, Augustine wrote of her:

Monica and her son spent six peaceful months at (present-day Cassago Brianza) after which Augustine was baptized by Ambrose in the church of St John the Baptist at Milan. Monica and Augustine left for Africa and they set out on their journey, stopping at Civitavecchia and at Ostia. Here Monica died, and Augustine's grief inspired his Confessions.

Veneration

Monica was buried at Ostia and at first seems to have been almost forgotten, though her body was removed during the 6th century to a hidden crypt in the church of Santa Aurea in Ostia. Monica was buried near the tomb of Aurea of Ostia.

In popular culture Patricia McGerr fictionalized her life in the 1964 novel My Brothers, Remember Monica: A Novel of the Mother of Augustine.

In the 2010 film Restless Heart: The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Saint Monica is portrayed by Italian actress Monica Guerritore.

In the oratorio La conversione di Sant'Agostino (1750) composed by Johann Adolph Hasse (libretto by Duchess Maria Antonia of Bavaria), Monica's role in the conversion of her son Augustine is dramatized.

In his poem "Confessional", Frank Bidart compares the relationship between Monica and her son Augustine to the relationship between the poem's speaker and his mother.

In "The Angel of Warning", the fifth episode of season 3 of the TV series Evil, David claims Monica was black, although traditionally portrayed as white in religious art. She is actually believed to have been Berber. In the tenth episode of season 3, he calls on St. Monica while jogging past a demonic apparition of sexual temptation in the guise of his colleague Kristen. He continues to pray for deliverance from temptation and is visited by St. Monica.

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