Without the heartbreak of watching her son, Saint Augustine sin his way through life, Saint Monica would be Monica, and no Saint.
I do not like to be stressed out.
In fact, the worst thing for me is to feel that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach when I am nervous or worried about something.
As a little child I dealt with this be making sure that I was always well prepared for my exams and assignments and assessments at school and later at university. I would make lists and keep calendars and go backwards and forwards over my work to make sure that I did not miss anything. And later – when I was working – I would do the same thing. I would keep lists (And I still do this to this day) and I would go over those lists and add things on and then cross them off as I worked my way through them. But the one common thing was that I would keep my tasks in front of my eyes.
When it was a busy time at school and even now, when it is a busy time at work, I tend to take extra steps with my lists to stay on top of things.
I am sure that psychologists reading this will be able to recognise some very unhealthy patterns in this sort of behaviour. Perhaps I have anxiety, perhaps I am unable to cope. Perhaps there is something else going on with me that I am so unaware of that I have not even realised how much damage I have done to myself through all my worry and stress. And yet, no matter the reason for all the stress, and no matter how I have tried to cope with that stress at the different stages of my life, it is the trial of that stress that is most difficult for me.
And I have been thinking about that today. You see, we each of us experience trials in this lifetime. For some people the trials are small, and they get stressed out about things and that is a very difficult thing for them to deal with. For others, the trials are larger. For those souls, they deal with terrible grief because a loved one is sick or has made choices that have ruined their earthly life.
Saint Monica was a soul like this. She suffered for over thirty years in watching her son, Saint Augustine, make choices that were terrible and bad for his spiritual soul. And though all those trials she continued to pray for him. In fact, without those trials – that heartbreak of watching her son sin his way through this earthly life – Saint Monica would be Monica, and no Saint. And so today, as I watch the people who I love struggle to cope with the trials that God has allowed into their lives, I stand back in heartbroken awe. For it is souls such as those, who are destined for Heaven, I have come to realise that when I stand beside such a soul as that in such a trial, I am standing beside a Saint…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.