At the Window in Ostia
Ordinary Time
Office of Readings · St. Augustine, Confessions
The day was now approaching when my mother Monica would depart from this life; you know that day, Lord, though we did not. She and I happened to be standing by ourselves at a window that overlooked the garden in the courtyard of the house. At the time we were in Ostia on the Tiber. And so the two of us, all alone, were enjoying a very pleasant conversation, forgetting the past and pushing on to what is ahead. We were asking one another in the presence of the Truth, for you are the Truth, what it would be like to share the eternal life enjoyed by the saints, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, which has not even entered into the heart of man. We desired with all our hearts to drink from the streams of your heavenly fountain, the fountain of life. That was the substance of our talk, though not the exact words. But you know, O Lord, that in the course of our conversation that day, the world and its pleasures lost all their attraction for us. My mother said, “Son, as far as I am concerned, nothing in this life now gives me any pleasure. I do not know why I am still here, since I have no further hopes in this world. I did have one reason for wanting to live a little longer: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died. God has lavished his gifts on me in that respect, for I know that you have even renounced earthly happiness to be his servant. So what am I doing here?” I do not really remember how I answered her. Shortly, within five days or thereabouts, she fell sick with a fever. Then one day during the course of her illness she became unconscious and for a while she was unaware of her surroundings. My brother and I rushed to her side, but she regained consciousness quickly. She looked at us as we stood there and asked in a puzzled voice: “Where was I?” We were overwhelmed with grief, but she held her gaze steadily upon us, and spoke further: “Here you shall bury your mother.” I remained silent as I held back my tears. However, my brother haltingly expressed his hope that she might not die in a strange country but in her own land, since her end would be happier there. When she heard this, her face was filled with anxiety, and she reproached him with a glance because he had entertained such earthly thoughts. Then she looked at me and spoke: “Look what he is saying.” Thereupon she said to both of us, “Bury my body wherever you will; let not care of it cause you any concern. One thing only I ask you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” Once our mother had expressed this desire as best she could, she fell silent as the pain of her illness increased.
Two people at a window, looking out over a garden, talking. That is the whole scene, and Augustine remembers it as one of the most important conversations of his life. He and Monica are alone, and somewhere in the middle of it the world quietly loses its grip on both of them. He says they were forgetting the past and pushing on to what is ahead, wondering aloud what eternal life with the saints might be like, the thing eye has not seen nor ear heard. They are not arguing about it. They are longing for it together, asking in the presence of the Truth himself.
As they spoke, the highest pleasures of the senses seemed insignificant beside the joy of eternal life. Augustine is not saying creation is worthless. He is saying no created good can hold a candle to God, the fountain of life. That is a different thing entirely.
Then Monica says the line that should stop you. She no longer has any earthly hope to wait on, because God already gave her the one she held most deeply: to see Augustine become a Catholic Christian. Augustine presents her words not as despair but as the language of a woman whose longing for God had simply outgrown her longing for anything else.
When the fever comes and her son worries about burying her far from home, she corrects him with a glance. Bury my body wherever you will, she says. Let not care of it cause you any concern. She had once cared about resting near her husband in her homeland. That concern had been loosened by grace. Her one request was not for a particular grave but that Augustine remember her before the Lord at the altar, entrusted to God in the Church's prayer.
She has already let go of the place, the homeland, the grave. What she holds onto is the altar. That is what it looks like when the fountain of divine life becomes more precious than every earthly pleasure.
Today's intention
Today I'll name one thing I'm gripping too tightly, thank God for the good in it, and ask whether I'm treating it as more important than him.