Feast of St. Monica

Every parent is Monica, completely devoted to giving our children everything good, consumed with devotion to them, and yet sometimes driving them crazy with that very desire to protect and manage them.  Children, please be patient with your parents!  And parents, please be patient with your children.  It’s so hard to strike a balance between “being there” unconditionally for our children and being overbearing.  (For Libby and I, and for our children, all of this is made more complicated and crazy by their overwhelming health care needs, and because we are all so stubborn and intelligent and intense.)  But the fact that this very struggle is what made Monica a saint—and how would you have liked being St. Augustine’s mother?—is both inspiring and consoling to me.  Pray for us parents, and for our own parents and our children, Saint Monica!