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Pope Benedict On Sts. Monica and Augustine

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"Their Testimonies Can Be of Great Help for Many Families"

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, AUG. 28, 2006 (Zenit) - Here is a translation of Benedict XVI's address Sunday at midday, before and after reciting the Angelus with the crowds gathered in the courtyard of the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Today, Aug. 27, we remember St. Monica, and tomorrow we will remember her son, St. Augustine: Their testimonies can be of great consolation and help for many families also of our time.

Monica, born in Tagaste, in present-day Algeria (in Souk-Arhas), of a Christian family, lived in an exemplary way her mission of wife and mother, helping her husband Patricius to discover, little by little, the beauty of faith in Christ and the strength of evangelical love, capable of overcoming evil with good.

After his death, which occurred prematurely, Monica dedicated herself with courage to the care of her three children, two boys and a girl, among them St. Augustine, who in the beginning made her suffer with his rather rebellious temperament.

As Augustine himself would say later, his mother gave him birth twice; the second time required a long spiritual labor, made up of prayer and tears, but crowned in the end by the joy of seeing him not only embrace the faith and receive baptism, but also dedicate himself entirely to the service of Christ.

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How many difficulties there are also today in family relationships and how many mothers are anguished because their children choose mistaken ways!

Monica, a wise and solid woman in the faith, invites them not to be discouraged, but to persevere in their mission of wives and mothers, maintaining firm their confidence in God and clinging with perseverance to prayer.

As to Augustine, his whole life was an impassioned search for truth. In the end, not without a long interior storm, he discovered in Christ the ultimate and full meaning of his life and of the whole of human history. In adolescence, attracted by earthly beauty, he "fell upon" it -- as he says honestly (Confessions 10, 27-38) -- selfishly and possessively with behavior that caused some sorrow in his pious mother.

But through a toilsome journey, thanks also to her prayers, Augustine opened himself ever more to the fullness of truth and love, to the point of conversion, which occurred in Milan, under the guidance of the bishop, St. Ambrose.

Thus he remains as model of the way to God, supreme truth and good. "Late have I loved you," he wrote in his famous book of the Confessions, "O beauty so ancient and so new .... For behold you were within me, and I outside; and I sought you outside .... You were with me and I was not with you ... You called and cried to me and broke open my deafness: And you sent forth your beams and shone upon me and chased away my blindness" (ibid.).

May St. Augustine obtain for us also the gift of a sincere and profound encounter with Christ, an encounter above all also for all those young people who, thirsty for happiness, seek it in mistaken ways and get lost in dead ends.

St. Monica and St. Augustine invite us to turn with confidence to Mary, seat of wisdom. To her we entrust Christian parents so that, like Monica, they will support their children on their way with their example and prayer.

To the virgin mother of God, we commend young people so that, as Augustine, they will always tend to the fullness of truth and love, which is Christ: He alone can satisfy the profound needs of the human heart.

[At the end of the Angelus, the Holy Father greeted pilgrims in seven languages. In English, he said:]

I am happy to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present for this Sunday Angelus, including the new students from the Pontifical North American College, and the former all-Ireland hurling champions from Offaly.

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Today's Gospel invites us to join Peter and profess our complete trust in the Lord, who alone has the words of eternal life. May your stay in Castel Gandolfo and Rome renew your faith in Christ, and may God bless you all!