This is the week when All Things seem to revolve around Mother’s Day, which itself is a day of raucous, rebellious history (someone needs to tell that to Hallmark), and is complicated for those who are mothers but don’t want to be, are not mothers and want to be, are children of mothers who make that challenging to be, or are children of mothers who have been but who now have died, and for those who have no opinion on the day whatsoever.
As it is, I’ve got at least three different takes on Mother’s Day to offer up: below is the first, a revisited sermon on St. Monica, remembered on May 4th as the mother of St. Augustine, which is simultaneously not the whole story, and a story in and of itself.
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Monica is the patron saint of girdles, tears, and wayward husbands.
It’s true.
Clearly, by looking at her life only briefly, we see why she is the patron saint of tears and wayward husbands, and how girdles got in there I don’t know, and don’t really care to know, although I am thankful that there is a patron saint for girdles, and that we get one-stop sainting for all three is probably a well-played thing.
Now, obviously, there was more to Monica’s life than the misfortune of the aforementioned adversities in her life.
In fact, she is remembered because she was the mother of St. Augustine.
I have to confess: I spent some time troubled by the reason of her remembrance.
I mean, if you look at other saints whom we recall, we get Philipp Melancthon, renewer of the Church; Florence Nightingale and Clara Maass, renewers of society; Kaj Munk, Danish pastor and martyr, and so forth.
They are all known and remembered for what they’ve done; renewing and pastoring and martyring.
Monica is recalled only because she happened to mother somebody whose name we know better than hers.
My concern stems out of a feminist awareness that all too often women define ourselves and are defined by others via our relationships to others; so and so’s mother, or so and so’s spouse, for example—the latter being an instance where women often even lose their very name: think Mrs. John Doe.
Now, my late mother Marge, she died in 2013. She spent much of her life being known primarily as Pastor George Madsen’s wife.
That wasn’t a terrible thing, of course, but one shouldn’t stop there.
Mom was educator, a flag maker, a hot air balloon flyer, a pottery-baker, a Red Cross volunteer, a caterer, and a very proud avoider of anything that smacked of obligatory pastor-wife-y roles! She would positively spin in her grave if we would one day look in our date books and find “St. Marjorie Madsen, wife of George Madsen.”
She’d much prefer something more colorful like, “Marjorie Madsen, patron saint of girdles, tears, and wayward husbands.”
Not that she bore any of these afflictions, mind you, but she’d figure that somebody must and she’d be happy to help as she could.
So do you see my quandary?
Do you see my concern about Monica’s epitaph?
On May 4, 1999, I preached this piece as a sermon at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus Ohio: my late husband and I had met and earned our M.Div degrees there, and right before my late husband and I were to fly over to Germany for my doctoral studies, I was invited back to preach on St. Monica.
Bill was many things, including being very intuitive, especially when it came to reading my moods. After noticing me harrumphing around the house, trying to write this very sermon, he noticed that I was not happy, and asked why. “Monica is only remembered, “ I grumbled, “because she was Augustine’s mother! It’s only because of her relationship to others that we pay her any mind at all.”
And Bill said, quietly wise, “Isn’t that the point of a saint?”
Isn’t it indeed.
Of course it’s the point of a saint.
That’s why every reading of today concerns not just the needs of one person, but people’s necessary relationship to others, be it in terms of justice and kindness, comfort and mercy, or the celebration that the body of Christ is blessed with many and varied gifts. It’s as if our texts tell us that we are positively supposed to be known by our relationship to others.
Much, if not all that we know of Monica, comes from the pen of Augustine, who speaks very fondly of his mother. Her husband really was wayward—violent and disposed to “dissolute living.” Augustine testifies that she was the sole source of stability in his boyhood home. And she did shed many tears, not only about her husband, but mostly about Augustine, who tended to take after his father, particularly in terms of his fascination, and the number of sexual encounters he had, with women.
Monica was quite concerned with Augustine’s propensity to enjoy the passing pleasures of life, but she was also plagued by the fact that he was not baptized, and when he became a Manichean, she fell into despair. Matters became so strained between Monica and her son that he finally moved out and into the home of his patron.
In 384, Augustine left Africa, intentionally not telling his mother of his departure, and fled to Rome. But Monica followed him. When she arrived in Rome, she discovered that he had left for Milan, and so she picked up her bags and followed him again. There in Milan, they reunited, made amends (after she kicked out two lovers), and the story ends, quite happily as far as Monica was concerned, with Augustine being baptized.
They left Milan together to return to Africa, and on the way home, in 387, Monica died.
To our ears, we might look at this tale and think that Monica maybe had a few ‘boundary issues.” After all, when Augustine arrived in Africa he was thirty years old for goodness’ sake.
Now it is a happy thing to be close to one’s mother. I was very close to mine, and I am so grateful that my daughter and I are as thick as can be.
My mother knew that she was always invited to my home, and I’d hope that my daughter might invite me into hers.
But the operative word, here, is ‘invite.’
However.
It is possible that in our stress on healthy boundaries, we might run the risk of not intervening when we ought, of giving up on our concern, of being afraid to push ourselves onto those who may have lost hope themselves but in whom we never will.
See, Monica understood what we mean when we speak of the Community of the Saints. If we are into sainthood, we are by default into communion, and community.
So, who needs your persistence? Who is wayward? Who needs your tears? Who’s still stuck wearing girdles? And what are you going to do about it?
Not because you have to do something about it.
Not because you feel guilted into doing something about it.
But because on Easter Jesus freed you to do something about it. You get to do something about it.
When he sprung from the grave, Jesus said, “Hey. I may be alive, but there still is waywardness in the world, not to mention tears and girdles. People still live in Good Fridays. Let this empty tomb open you to a little risk, and give you a few boundary issues. Go do a Monica,” Jesus tells us.
May all your epitaphs read your name, and then mother to, or child of, or friend to, or justice-seeker for, or kindness-giver to.
For thanks to Jesus, through our relationship to him we cannot help but be in relationship to others.
And that indeed is good news, and a fine reason to honor a saint.
Texts of the Day are Micah, 6:1-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
