Hi, I m Father Chris Alar, one of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception and welcome to
Ask a Marian. This week s question is from Pamela in Fresno, California who asks: Father,
I m troubled by my children who don t seem to care about their faith. They don t go to
Church and they haven t even baptized their children. What are the best things I can do
to help them see the value of the gift we have in our Catholic Faith?
Well, Pamela, this is a common question, and I have a video on YouTube called How to Bring
Love Ones Back to the Church, and I recommend watching that because it gives some practical
ways to help them. But we put your question for another reason. Tomorrow and Saturday
are the Feast Days of Saint Monica and Saint Augustine. You see, like your children, Augustine
was wayward and drifted away from the faith. It s kind of like my Camera Man Giuseppe,
who fifteen years ago, thought he was a rap star. He wasn t, wasn t practicing his Faith.
And so, this was Augustine. Not only was he not practicing his Religion, he was living
in extreme sin, including even having a pre-teen lover. Distressed by all of this, his mother,
Saint Monica wept every night for Augustine, which even led her to drink. And um, many
of you have probably felt the same pressures. But she kept praying. Monica s alms, her deeds
and her prayer habits were so devout that it even annoyed Patricius, which, who was
her husband. You know, um, like I guess many, and I hear from many of you faithful Catholics,
Monica s hands were full. She was living with a very temperamental husband,
she lived with a very disagreeable mother-in-law, I m sure you all know that, and in fact, very
few people know this, she actually prayed more years for the conversion of her husband
and mother-in-law, than Augustine s, but prayers worked for all three. Now, however, Pamela,
it seems though that sometimes we have to involve tough love here. When Augustine came
home as a Manichean, which was basically a Christian heresy, Monica actually drove him
away from the house. Later though, God softened her heart and she
wanted to reconcile. So, she visited a Bishop who consoled her with the now famous phrase,
The child of this many tears, shall never perish. So, Monica followed her wayward son
to Rome, but then learned that he was already gone. He went to Milan in Italy. There, she
found that Bishop, Saint Ambrose and through him, she saw the joy of seeing Augustine convert
after seventeen years. It was beautiful. Again, it was because of her strong faith, which
remember, Jesus said, can move mountains. So, Pamela, um, this is a great person to
look to, to pray for intercession. You know, you re from California and south of you is
the city of Santa Monica, California, which obviously is named after Saint Monica. And,
legend has it that in the eighteenth century, a Priest named Juan Crespi named a dripping
spring Las Lagrimas de Santa Monica, which is Saint Monica s Tears, and today it s known
as the Serra Springs. So, Saint Monica here, is the answer to not just mothers, but, our
whole present crisis, because she s the patron of wives, mothers, even abuse victims.
Now, Saint Augustine, her son, who lived in the late three-hundreds and early four-hundreds,
has his Feast Day the day after Saint Monica s. His is on August 28th, which is this Saturday.
Which is the date that he actually died. His writings helped shape all of Western Christianity
and Western Philosophy. He is a Patristic Father and a Doctor of the Church, which means
his writings have been officially analyzed, looked at, and we can trust.
Um, you know, so we can t ignore him like many non-Catholics choose to do. And, as mentioned,
his story and hers is an inspiration. Um, like many of our youth, he was wayward. He
left the Church for this Manichean heresy, and um, needless to say, his sexual exploits
are legendary. He admitted them. He even wrote about them. He even had a child out of wedlock,
stating, Lord, give me chastity, just not yet. So, so don t worry Pamela, God is always
at work. Even while Augustine was living a pagan life,
Monica s prayers were planting seeds, and so can t yours. Augustine s first insight
and God s Grace working in him, was he saw the nature of sin when he stole some pears
that he didn t even want. He wrote about this in his work called, The Confessions. He didn
t steal the fruit because he was hungry, but because it was not permitted. His very nature,
he said, is flawed, as it is with all of us. It was foul, he said, and I loved it. From
um, from that time, he concluded that the human person is naturally drawn to sin, inclined
to sin. We call that concupiscence, and that s why he helped to develop the doctrine of
original sin. It's like we re born that way. That s why
we need Baptism, and why we need the Grace of Christ. So, anyway, his conversion was
then prompted by this voice he heard, this voice of a Child telling him to Take up, and
Read. Take up, and Read , and he took that as a command from God to open the Bible and
read the first passage he saw. And what he opened up to was, Romans 13:13. And it says,
quote, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling
and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill
the lusts thereof. So, that hit Augustine, and, he ended his
relationship with his lover and instead, became a Priest in 391. A great writer, he wrote
The City of God, where the City he described, was the Catholic Church, distinct from any
earthly city. And he wrote to console the Christians after the Visigoths had sacked
Rome in 410. Now, here a little interesting side part. Do you know who led that sacking
in Rome, was Alar-ic the Hun. Alar-ic. And, tracing our family back, uh, scarily, or kind
of in a strange way, it shows that he s from my relatives, I think from the Ancestors,
from the best that we can tell. So, I guess my Brothers would say, that explains Father
Chris sometimes. But anyway, his many other works became staples
in um defining and explaining the Faith, or explaining our Faith, and that s where our
Saturday talks always continue. And, I m going to continue with this talk on Saturday about
Saint Augustine and Saint Monica. But anyway, he, he did a lot of great work, he condemned
things like induced abortion as a crime in any stage of pregnancy, and he worked tirelessly
for people to convert them to Catholicism. Something we re afraid to do today.
But, Pamela, I have to acknowledge that patient prayer can be the hardest thing in the world.
Prayer properly done can be seen as a wholly waste of time sometimes. In the same way that
would be like playing for instance, with your toddler. Well, gee, it was a waste of time,
I didn t get anything done, I didn t cross anything off of my to-do list. But, through
your play, your child is loved and cared for. So, it s the same with prayer. You know, you
may not appear to be getting anything done, but you get a lot done.
It's spending time with someone you love. You know, you might feel you get nothing,
but you get everything. And it recognizes that God s influence in human events here
on earth, guide our history, it changes human history. That s how powerful it is. And, yet
at the same time, He respects our free will. So, we see that with Augustine. God respected
the free will of Augustine, and yet, He also pursued Augustine. Because, as Saint Ambrose
told Saint Monica, a child of so many tears will never perish. So, Monica s prayers put
God to work, and God used those, um tears, or heartaches of a heartbroken mother to change
Augustine s life. And unbeknownst to your children, Pamela,
it can do the same for them. So, God bless you and keep praying. It ll plant seeds that
may not even germinate until the end of their life. So, thank you, that s a great question.
And, may Almighty God bless you. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.