BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Friday, August 27, 21st Week in Ordinary Time

Center painting is Andrea del Verrochio's 15th-century homage to St. Monica, in the Church of Santo Spirito, Florence.
ST. MONICA (b Tagaste[in present Algeria] 331, d Ostia, Italy, 387), Widow
Born to a Christian family of Berbers (indigenous white people of North Africa) in Roman North Africa, she was given in marriage to Patricius, a pagan, who had a violent temper and was adulterous but apparently respected his wife for her charity and piety. Her prayers would lead to the conversion of her husband one year before his death, when the oldest of their three children, Augustine, was 16. Sent to study in Carthage, Augustine turned out to be licentious and embraced the Manichean heresy. His lifestyle distressed his mother who for a while refused to let her eat or sleep in her house. But a vision told her that Augustine would eventually return to the faith, so from then on, she stayed close to him and prayed and fasted for his conversion. He became a teacher of rhetoric and had a son by one of his mistresses. At age 29, when Augustine decided to pursue his career in Italy, he got away by tricking Monica, who followed him nonetheless all the way to Milan. Augustine came under the influence of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who also became Monica's spiritual adviser. Augustine started Christian instruction under Ambrose, who baptized Augustine and some of his friends at Easter 387. Shortly afterwards, Augustine decided to go back to Africa with his mother and son. In Rome's port city of Ostia, where they were to take the ship for Africa, Monica fell ill and died after a few days, having told her son. "I do not know what there is left for me to do - all my hopes in this world have been fulfilled". She was buried in Ostia, where her remains were transferred to a secret crypt in the sixth century, and after a cult to her developed in the 13th century, Pope Martin VI ordered her relics brought to Rome, where they now repose in the Church of St. Augustine in Campo Marzio. She is venerated as the patroness of wives and mothers.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/082710.shtml


OR today.
Two papal stories in this issue: Benedict XVI's letter to the Missionaries of Charity on the centenary year of Mother Teresa's birth, and a story on the Ratzinger Schuelerkreis seminar which starts today in Castel Gandolfo. Page 1 international news are updates on the proposed resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks, the civil war in Somalia, and continuing terrorist attacks in Iraq.


The Vatican released the annual message from the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog greeting
Muslims around the world on the Feast of Id-al-Fit'r, marking the end of the fasting month Ramadan.