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St Monica & St Rita - graceful agents of conversions
by MARIA MADISE
St Monica and St Rita were born on different continents over a thousand years apart. Obviously, they could have had no contact with one another, albeit St Rita eventually entered an Augustinian convent in Cascia in central Italy, and thus became a spiritual daughter of St Monica’s son St Augustine. However, what these two great female saints share is something much greater than time and space. It is their inexhaustible work for the conversion of souls.
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St Monica (331-387), mother of St Augustine, was born in Africa, in modern-day Algeria. She was raised as a Christian but given in marriage to a Roman pagan, Patricius, who is said to have had a violent temper and dissolute manners. Patricius’s quick-tempered mother also lived with them which added to Monica’s trials. Monica’s piety and prayers annoyed Patricius, but he always respected her. A year before Patricius’s death, Monica’s ceaseless prayers and sacrifices were rewarded with his baptism. Their son Augustine was then seventeen years old. However, another seventeen years of Monica’s dedicated prayers were needed for Augustine, who was led astray in heresy and impurity. Augustine himself wrote in his Confessions that “she shed for him more tears than other mothers shed over a coffin”.1 Today we may find the Roman Catechism startling in its gentle reproach regarding our natural inclination to place the good of our physical life over the good of the spiritual life, when we read: “[i]t sometimes happens that persons feel more intense sorrow for the death of their children than for the grievousness of their sins”.2 This was certainly not the case with St Monica. A bishop whom she tried to persuade to speak to her son, in order to help to bring Augustine to a better frame of mind, consoled her: “For it might be that the child of such tears would not perish”. After Augustine’s marvellous conversion and baptism by the hand of St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Monica saw that her work was done. She said to him:
ST AUGUSTINE TAKEN TO SCHOOL BY ST MONICA, C.1415, NICOLO DI PIETRO, PINACOTECA, THE VATICAN.
“Son, there is nothing now I care for in this life. What I shall now do or why am I here, I know not. The one reason I had for wishing to linger in this life a little longer was that I might see you a Catholic Christian before I died. This has God granted superabundantly in seeing you reject earthly happiness to become His servant. What do I here?”3 Very shortly after that, she died.
St Rita (1386-1456) was born in Umbria, Italy. As a young girl, she had a strong desire for religious life, but in obedience to her parents, she married at the age of twelve. By all accounts, it was a difficult marriage, as her husband was a cruel and immoral man who had many enemies. They had two sons, tempestuous as their father. Throughout their eighteen years of marriage, St Rita was known by her patience, docility, and forbearance. Finally, her husband turned from his abusive ways but was soon murdered by a member of a feuding family. Rita gave a public pardon to the murderers, but her two sons were expected to take revenge for their father. Rita was praying that God would spare the boys from the guilt of blood. Both boys died of natural causes the following year. Thereafter, Rita sought to enter the Augustinian convent in Cascia. She was refused several times, because she was a widow and because of her association with the feud through her husband’s family, which was much feared, as there were nuns from the rivalling family in the convent. Rita implored the help of St John the Baptist, St Augustine of Hippo and St Nicholas of Tolentino and incredibly, managed to persuade both parties to sign a peace agreement and bury La Vendetta. After she had been accepted, her three patron saints were said to have carried her into the convent at night through the bolted gates. Many miracles were associated with her there which continued after her death. At the age of sixty, she received a small deep wound on her forehead as if pierced by a thorn from the crown of our Lord. This wound remained open until the day she died and united her ever more closely to the Passion of Christ for souls.
Whenever in Italy, I visit a certain cheese seller, who is originally from Cascia. His excellent produce comes all from that region. Italians’ unrivalled love for their saints is beautifully portrayed in this man. With every piece of cheese purchased, I am assured that St Rita is deservedly the patroness for impossible causes: there is nothing she could not handle, her body is most incorrupt, she is the best. Such attitude of complete reliance and confidence in our heavenly aides seems most instructive. Time has no relevance: what was possible for Rita is possible for us if we foster proper zeal for souls.
What does this zeal consist of? It is comprised of the desire for the good of our neighbour and the glory of God. The spiritual classic Divine Intimacy instructs: “It is true that the primary end of God’s action is His own glory, but He who is infinitely good wills to obtain this glory especially through the salvation and the happiness of His creatures. In fact, nothing exalts His goodness, love and mercy more than the work of saving souls. Therefore, to love God and His glory means to love souls; it means to work and sacrifice oneself for their salvation.”4 Complementing this, Butler’s Lives of the Saints exhorts: “There is no prayer more pleasing to God than that which has for its object the conversion of those who lead lives of sin, particularly sins against the faith.”5
It would serve us well to recall the example of St Monica and St Rita as we are preparing for Christmas and thinking of gifts for our family and friends. What is the greatest gift we have received? Is it not our Catholic faith? So glorious, so beautiful and so complete that those who embrace it will not find anything wanting. However, the reality in the world and in the Church today, inevitably means that most of us are, in some way, familiar with the situation of St Monica and St Rita – with family members and friends far from the nourishment of the true faith. What more beautiful or more necessary gift could we give them than our patient work for their conversion?
Humanly speaking, most of the time, there is little we can do. Attempts to bring about conversion by our own means would be imprudent and fruitless. God has created us free and He honours the freedom of His creatures even to the point of their rejection of Him. Rather, what is required of us is our devotion to prayer and sacrifice on their behalf. This is a real interior work that, if consistent and supported by an example of a good Christian life, can bear abundant fruit, as amply proved by St Monica and St Rita.
Of course, there are countless other saints who have been instrumental to the conversion of those around them. St Cecilia converted her new husband Valerian and his brother Tiburtius in a very short period of time. St Catharine converted the philosophers of the Emperor’s court, and St Alban his own executioners. These and many other extraordinary examples are truly inspiring but today, it is the persistence of St Monica and St Rita and their longsuffering devotion to prayer and sacrifice that we seem to be most in need of. Perhaps, like them, our efforts
will be met with ignorance, ingratitude, denial and disbelief for many years. And yet, when we truly love our neighbours, we must commit ourselves to their conversion, even if there seems to be no prospect of winning them for Christ. As Christians, we are called to give ourselves up unreservedly for souls, above all for those closest to us, so that they may share the true gift of faith that illuminates the way to Heaven - and perhaps especially now when the face of our beloved Church seems so disfigured and humiliated.
In Heaven, there are no passive observers. Everyone who desires to go there must become a saint. Pope Pius XI explains: “Christ has called the whole human race to the lofty heights of sanctity. (...) There are some who say that sanctity is not everyone’s vocation; on the contrary, it is everyone’s vocation, and all are called to it (...) Let no-one believe that sanctity belongs to a few chosen people, while the rest of humanity can limit itself to a lesser degree of virtue. Everyone is included in this law; no-one is exempt from it.”6
What more could we wish for those we love? How better can we reward those who love us enough to pray for our sanctification than to persevere in prayer for the conversion of souls and desire Heaven for them? This is not a gift we can present to them on Christmas Day, but it is a gift that those who do not know the faith, are most in need of: to be summoned with the shepherds, even if only in our prayer, to the manger of our newborn Lord.
Let us never grow tired, let us never give up. In this lifelong work, let us always draw new strength and hope from the examples of St Monica and St Rita, who persevered until the end:
“It is impossible to set any bounds to what persevering prayer may do. It gives man a share in the Divine Omnipotence. St Augustine’s soul lay bound in the chains of heresy and impurity, both of which had by long habit grown inveterate. They were broken by his mother’s prayers.”7
ENDNOTES:
1. St Augustine Confessions, Book III, ch. 2. 2. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Baronius Press, 2018, p. 254. 3. Butler’s Lives of the Saints, Dover Publications, 2005, p. 169. 4. Father Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen OCD, Divine Intimacy, Baronius Press, 2008, p. 924. 5. Butler’s Lives of the Saints, Dover Publications, 2005, p. 403. 6. Father Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen OCD, Divine Intimacy, Baronius Press, 2008, pp. 6-7. 7. Butler’s Lives of the Saints, Dover Publications, 2005, p. 169.
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