May 4: Saint Monica
Patroness of Alcoholics and Fraternal Correction
The story of Saint Monica should be familiar to mothers. She spent years praying for her son, Saint Augustine's, conversion. She was rewarded and soon went to her heavenly reward.
She was also married to a belligerent man, who treated her poorly and yet she did not complain at all. She was beaten and she did not complain to friends, who knew that she was treated far worse than any other woman in town. We should all learn to pray to God to have the offender change and then take whatever comes to us from our families, good or bad, without complaint: For a man's enemies are of his own household. (Matthew 10:36)
Further as a teenager she was commissioned by her parents to draw wine for dinner. As she drew it she began each day to take a little more, until she was taking a cup a day. A servant fraternally corrected her and from that day she no longer stayed on the course to drunkenness and alcoholism.
PRAYER: Saint Monica, you were corrected when on the course of sin and humbly accepted; help us who are sinners to accept the rebukes we so richly deserve and need in order to save our souls. Amen.
