Single-Mindedness
We remember St Monica, the mother of Augustine, for her tenacity — and she certainly had character. More essential still, though, was her perseverance in prayer. Powerful are the words she spoke to her son the day before she died, recorded in Augustine’s Confessions: ‘What I am doing here still, or why I am still here, I do not know, for worldly hope has withered away for me. One thing only there was for which I desired to linger in this life: to see you a Catholic Christian before I died.’ Our prayer should be universal, cosmic; it should embrace the whole world. At the same it is good to adopt a personal intention as ours particularly, keeping it ever aflame before the Lord, like a sanctuary lamp carefully tended. If we did, who knows what blessed transformations might take place.
