Monica is the patron of mothers of difficult children because she was the mother of St. Augustine. Although Augustine was one of the most influential thinkers in all of Christian history, he devoted much of his early life to sensuality: he, for instance, lived for years with a woman out of wedlock and had a child by her. Throughout the years of her son’s experiments with pleasure and non-Christian religions, Monica, a devout Catholic, patiently and persistently poured out a string of prayers and tears. Soon after Augustine converted to Christianity in 387, Monica–knowing the prayers for her wayward son had been answered–died in his presence. After her death, Augustine wrote of her: “This was the mother, now dead and hidden awhile from my sight, who had wept over me for many years so that I might live.” In this small image of Monica she is shown holding a cup, the cup of tears she wept for her son, now a saint like her.