St. Monica (1465), by Benozzo Gozzoli. (WikiPaintings.org)

I’ve slowly been trying to read through St. Augustine's Confessions in the original Latin for a while now. I’ve had to lay it down recently, but I hope to pick it up again soon. I am pushed for time today, but it being the memorial of St. Monica, Augustine’s pious mother, I wanted to share briefly. This is a passage from the Confessions that was especially poignant to me, having been a wayward son myself, and having a loving mother who prays for me without ceasing.

Woe is me! And dare I say that you were silent, my God, while I wandered further from you? Were you not then silent to me? And whose, but yours, were those words, which through my mother, your faithful one, you sang in my ears? These to me seemed only womanly advice, which would be embarrassing to obey. But they were yours, and I did not know. I thought you were silent and only she had spoken, but you were speaking to me; and in her, it was you who were being disdained by me, by me, her son, the son of your handmaid, your servant.

—St. Augustine, Confessions, II.3

[I am pretty sure this is my own translation, but I honestly don’t remember for sure (I posted it on my Facebook wall a couple of years ago). Tomorrow is St. Augustine’s memorial, and I hope to be able to share a little more.]