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Millions of Monicas celebrate feast day with the bishop

GREENSBORO — The Feast Day of St. Monica Mass celebrated by Bishop Michael Martin drew more than 400 parishioners and members of the Millions of Monicas to St. Paul the Apostle Aug. 27 for prayer and a message of hope.

“God knows the wound that is your heart,” the bishop said during his homily. “What He knows, He controls, and what He knows, He can heal.”

Millions of Monicas is a national organization of mothers who come together in local chapters to pray for children and relatives who have fallen away from the Catholic faith.

There are five groups within the Diocese of Charlotte who meet weekly for an hour of prayer.

The group was inspired by St. Monica, who prayed and fasted for more than 17 years for the conversion of her son St. Augustine, her husband, and her mother-in-law – all of whom eventually returned to the faith. Her motherly persistence exemplifies the power of prayer.

“During the Mass, I just felt the presence of the Lord with us,” said Millions of Monica member Marianne Uehlein. “The bishop’s homily was spot on; it gave an actionable direction. It was what we needed to hear.”

Many Monicas at one time sat in pews, watching loved ones get dipped into the baptismal font, smiled during their First Holy Communion, and listened while they explained their chosen saint for Confirmation.

Somewhere along the way, their loved one stopped believing. The heartbreak of the loss causes different reactions, but crying, begging, nagging, sleepless nights and fault-finding hurt more than help, Bishop Martin said.

Bishop Martin addressed the need to let go and allow God to do the heavy lifting in his homily.

“If you walk through life with a hammer in your hand, everything starts to look like a nail,” he cautioned.

Bishop Martin drew the analogy of saying how difficult it would be for him if he knew that his mother and father were only seeing the parts of him that pained them at the cost of his positive traits. In essence, only seeing him as the “nail.”

“We are given a saintly example tonight of one such woman, who had an optic where she saw her son for what he could be, but loved him for who he was,” he explained.

He asked the Monicas to repeat that with him, and the room echoed, “Saw her son for what he could be but loved him for who he was.”

Bishop Martin left them with two messages that he hoped would bring both comfort and an action plan.

First, let go of the narrative of blame and regret. There are no perfect parents, except for Mary and Joseph, he said.

“To spend your hours, to spend your life, to waste a second on regret is a waste of spirit, and all it does is darken the lens through which you see your child,” he warned.

Second, there is one Savior, and it is not us, he cautioned.

“We don’t get to dictate who is the person (referring to St. Ambrose – the man who led Augustine to Jesus) who gets to bring the Good News to the people we love,” he said.

Let go of the need to be the one who will say the right thing, do the right thing and have the perfect response, he said.

The burden is not on their shoulders, he comforted. “He is carrying it all already for us. Lay the burden down.”

After Mass, lines of Monicas gathered in prayer before the image and relic of St. Monica and the statue of the Precious Virgin.

Ana Sturt, a member of Millions of Monicas at St. Mark, traveled over an hour for the Mass. She’s a living testament to the power of prayer.

Sturt spends her prayer time focusing on her son and daughter’s friend group - 10 adults now in their mid-20s, whom she has watched grow up.

“They never really showed any interest in going to church or joining in prayers,” she said. “I prayed for a St. Ambrose to come into their lives.”

After she joined the group, Sturt was amazed that the group started asking about rosaries, prayers and the Church.

“Over the summer, I went to Mass, and there was my daughter and 10 of her friends,” she said. “They took up the whole pew, all sitting right in front of the relic of St. Monica. I wanted to cry.”

— Lisa M. Geraci. Photos by Lisa M. Geraci and Dora F. Neubauer