Fr Alex Swain

Beloved in Christ,

The Communion of Saints is powerful because, as we celebrate and recall the lives of the Saints from the past, we are simultaneously engaging with the same holy people in the present.

The Communion of Saints disrupts our assumption about how space and time function, because eternity and infinitude get involved.

So today, as we celebrate and remember the life of St. Monica on her feast day, let us rejoice that she is alive in the presence of our God thanks to the saving work of Jesus Christ.

Monica is the mother of St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the most important theologians in Christian history, and perhaps the foundational theologian of what would later become “Western” Christianity.

According to Lesser Feasts and Fasts (2024), Monica married a Pagan provincial of Tagaste name Patricius, who was both violent and abusive in their early years together. She prayed diligently that her three children would come to know Christ and lived a life of profound faith in the midst of great suffering.

St. Augustine records that she died of an illness while away from their home. When asked if she was afraid to die in an alien land, she responded, “Nothing is far from God, and I need have no fear that he will not know where to find me, when he comes to raise me to life at the end of the world.”

The statement, “Nothing is far from God” has stuck with me since reading her entry.

Yet how frequently we may feel far from God: for our sins, shortcomings, our shame, our despair. Sometimes even just the mundane busyness of life can cause us to feel far from God—like we are in an alien land much like Monica.

St. Monica reminds us that no matter where we find ourselves—either physically, emotionally, or spiritually—no one is ever far from God.

You are never far from God.

And it takes but a mere momentary recollection for us to step out of our hazy ways of being to remember that this is true.

That our nearness to God is actually much more real than our anxieties or stressors.

So today, let us give thanks for the faithful witness of St. Monica, and may she pray for us to the Lord our God!

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Alex