„Fove Precantes, Trinitas!” The Beneficent Influence of Saint Monica through Unceasing Prayers and Words of the Spirit, in the Dialogues of Cassiciacum
No study of St. Monica, however brief it may be, can be considered complete without an examination of her role in Cassiciacum’s Dialogues. Here we find her participating in philosophical discussions, a role that apparently does not match the portrait provided in Confessiones. In this study, in which both Monica’s speeches in Dialogues and Augustine’s comments on them are carefully analyzed, we aim to emphasize that we should not come across an unforeseen intellectual face, but rather a Monica as an epitome of those women who reached, by recourse to God, to the Holy Scripture, especially to the Book of Psalms, as well as to the liturgical tradition of the Church, by participating twice a day in divine services in the church, wisdom and a certain understanding of the truths of the Christian religion, a position which Augustine is suddenly ready to appreciate. This is supported by his commentary on his mother’s first contribution, when he confesses that he understood the source and how divine this source, from which her words spring, was (De beata vita, 10). Augustine is now prepared not only to respect and accept her wisdom springing from Christian faith, but also, in his presentation, to optimize and highlight Monica’s ideas, using them to illustrate this new acceptance of the importance of authority in a religious dimension.