My head whipped back and forth as I found a rare gap in the rush-hour traffic barreling down the road. I ran across the street and rushed inside the church, forgetting to catch the door closing loudly behind me. My fingers hastily swiped at the holy water font. I made the Sign of the Cross in one short, fluid movement. I threw myself on to a single-person kneeler, my forearms sticky on the back of the chair in front of me.
I hadn't come to the church to pray. In the shuffle of cars that comes with having five drivers and not as many vehicles in the family, I was plunked there to wait for my ride. But there I was at my parish, in an unwarranted rush to the tiny chapel at the back of the church building, staring up at the golden tabernacle crowed by St. Faustina's Divine Mercy image.
I silently launched myself into my usual pre-prayer routine of inadvertently thinking of all the incomplete tasks on my to-do list and simultaneously trying to catch my breath from my always-hurried entrance.
As I tried to enter into a prayerful state, I became easily distracted. A window's reflection afforded me the view of a uniquely captivating scene.
Behind me, a stooped old woman mightily traversed the church, struggling to push a walker that seemed nearly her height. Her feathery white hair framed droopy eyes, and her pleated pants, patterned with delicate white flowers, looked small enough to fit a child.
She approached the tabernacle deliberately.
In between distracted prayers, I had been stealing glances at her out of my peripheral vision, but as she advanced closer I abandoned attempts to pray. I watched, enthralled, as she shakily parked her walker and grasped a chair. She lowered herself carefully onto the kneeler directly beneath the tabernacle.
And there she remained.
I knelt there in stunned silence. This woman was my opposite. She was a perfectly purposeful foil to abrupt, rash little me. Yet what struck me most was not her patience, prayerfulness, or contrast to me, but her steadfastness in the face of illness and old age. I was merely passing through this church, completely able to walk and kneel without difficulty or pain. She seemed almost a permanent fixture once she settled. Jesus and she were old friends.
I've seen this scene play out in dozens of churches, in many states and countries. The old woman might have been my one-time confessor whose heart stopped twice--whose multiple medical deaths did not prevent him from returning to minister the sacraments to the Church's faithful.
She might have been the ancient man with huge, fuzzy white eyebrows who never misses a daily Mass at my parish.
She might have been my grandmother, praying Rosary after Rosary to fill her days because she has the Christian hope and patience of St. Monica.
She might have been the faithful deacon at my parish who never left the church after his retirement from work and his deacon's duties, who performed as an altar server nearly until his death at 95 just a few months ago.
All these faithful and many more bind together the Body of Christ. They are the ones who, like St. Monica, pray for years for the conversion of hearts. They have been through years of heartache and turmoil. They have asked God "Why?" time and time again. They have encountered countless seemingly-unanswered prayers. They have seen children and grandchildren grow up and move out and move on from a faith that appears to them as antiquated as their parents and grandparents.
They have used crutches, canes, walkers, and wheelchairs as their slow-moving vehicles of transportation to the Eucharistic table.
Younger ones, like me, will flit and waver in faith. For all but a blessed few, it will take years until we find ourselves rooted in Christ and strengthened by the faith (Col. 2:6-7). We rely on the prayers and sacrifices the more seasoned faithful offer for us.
Their sacrifice of love sustains us.
Their example inspires us.
"I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life." -Catholic Rite of Marriage
I have a problem with persistent prayer.
I don't mean constant prayer, or even making time for prayer, although I find both of those difficult. I mean perseverance in prayer. Despite turmoil and distraction, despite droves of prayer requests and passing time, I want to be persistent in asking the Lord to move hearts.
Most long-term illnesses are not suddenly relieved by some miracle. Financial struggles rarely end in a windfall. People do not convert to Catholicism overnight. Few make complete turnovers when they do convert or come home to the Church. For most of us, it is a daily struggle to pursue the way of the Lord amidst trial. As Catholic author Colleen Carroll Campbell wrote in her novel My Sisters the Saints: "The waiting is the cross."
Fortunately, the saints in Heaven have already run the race, to borrow the words of St. Paul. One particular saint heroically endured years of seemingly unanswered prayers before calmly and graciously receiving immeasurable blessings from God. She inspires me to grow in sanctity myself by praying for others.
That heroic woman is St. Monica, mother of St. Augustine (and patron saint of patience).
St. Augustine, now a giant among saints and a Doctor of the Church, once led a life of sin and heresy. For years, he traveled around northern Africa and southern Europe partying, pursuing worldly ambitions, studying, actively promoting heretical beliefs, and eventually converting to Christianity and becoming a priest, then bishop.
St. Monica prayed vigilantly during the many years that her son was gallivanting around the Mediterranean. She even followed her son during his travels and advocated on his behalf. How was she able to trust wholeheartedly in the Lord while watching her son stray farther and farther from the Church?
She was confident in the Lord. She never despaired. She knew that God would prevail in her son's heart. After sharing with her that he had turned from the Manichean heresy, St. Augustine said of Monica's disposition that
"[h]er heart was not shaken with some tumultuous exultation when she heard that what she had sought of the Lord daily with so many tears was in so great a part already accomplished...she was confident that you [God], who had promised the whole, would one day give the rest, she replied to me most calmly and with a heart full of faith, that she believed in Christ that before she departed this life she would see me a Catholic believer."
And she did.
She sought help from other Christians. St. Ambrose, for one. Monica knew she couldn't do this alone. A mother grieving for her son's eternal soul, Monica wept "copious tears," according to Augustine. It was for this reason that St. Ambrose spoke to her his iconic words:
"The child of those tears shall never perish."
She kept her request at the forefront of her mind. She was physically close to her son during his trials and struggles to embrace the faith. Augustine wrote of this time in his Confessions, addressed to the Lord:
"I sought you outside myself and did not find the God of my heart. I had come into the depths of the sea, and distrusted and despaired of ever discovering the truth. By this time my mother had come to me, strengthened by her piety, following me over sea and land, and trusting you through all danger."
In her lifetime, Monica saw her son through a hundred evils before she saw him turn from them to sacrifice his life in priestly service. Shortly after Augustine's conversion and baptism, she said to him: "Son, nothing in this world now affords me delight. I do not know what there is now left for me to do or why I am still here, all my hopes in this world being now fulfilled."
I draw strength from St. Monica, whose infinite patience and hope came to fruition in St. Augustine's conversion and priesthood. Someday she and I will be great friends. I encourage anyone struggling with a long-term trial, especially the lack of faith in family members, to ask St. Monica for her intercession.
And, as always, ask for the Blessed Virgin Mary's intercession. She, another model of hope, trust, and patience, awaits the pleas of her children. Unite yourself to Mary, from whom "we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone," says St. John Paul II.
-R
