Almost everything we know about Monica comes from her son Augustine's Confessions. She was born around 331 in North Africa, raised as a Christian, and married to Patricius, a pagan official of Thagaste with a quick temper. Augustine says she never answered his anger in the moment but waited until he calmed down. Patricius was baptized shortly before he died.

Her eldest son Augustine broke her heart. He lived with a woman outside marriage, joined the Manichaean (followers of Mani, who taught that the world is a battle between equal powers of good and evil) sect, and pursued fame as a teacher. She wept and prayed for him for years. A bishop told her, “It is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish.” When Augustine sailed secretly for Rome to escape her, she followed him to Italy. In Milan she came to know Bishop Ambrose and saw Augustine baptized at Easter 387.

At Ostia, waiting to sail home, mother and son shared a conversation about heaven at a window, which Augustine describes in Book 9 of the Confessions. Days later she fell ill. She told them to bury her anywhere: “Only this I ask, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” She died, aged about 56. People follow Monica because she kept praying for a child who wanted nothing to do with her faith, for seventeen years.

Monica (c. 332–387) was a Christian woman of North Africa, mother of St. Augustine of Hippo. Augustine's Confessions describe her years of prayer and tears for his conversion. She died at Ostia, near Rome, in 387, shortly after his baptism. Her feast falls the day before his.