Saint Augustine and his mother Saint Monica of Hippo

Born in North Africa into a Christian family, Monique was married very young to a pagan notable from Thagaste, Patricius. She will be a model wife for this unfaithful and violent husband whom her gentleness and silence under reproaches will end up converting. She has three children from him, including the future Saint Augustine.

Widowed in 371, she devotes herself to this son who seems "to go wrong". First of all, he lives in a marital relationship with a woman from whom he has a son. But the most painful remains joining the Manichaean sect, so opposed to the Christian faith. How many tears does this child cost his mother. Unwelcome tears for this free spirit.

To escape, Augustin fled to Italy and Monique joined him in Milan where she went to the school of Bishop Saint Ambrose. Saint Augustine and Saint Monica at the port, stained glass window in the Saint-Vaast church It was then that she had the immense joy of witnessing the conversion and baptism of her beloved son. From now on she will no longer be a living reproach, but a help and even a disciple when the intellectual and spiritual breadth of the future Father of the Church asserts itself. One evening, in Ostia, they have the happiness of sharing an intense spiritual experience that Augustine will only mention in hints in his "Confessions".

She will die a few days later, mother filled with this son who had made her cry so much.