"She’s a saint!" Have you ever heard people say that about their mothers? Values we Christians embrace are shared values of motherhood: selflessness, love, care, strength, virtue, and commitment. There are many examples throughout history of mothers who worked closely with their children to do God’s work. When we look at the lives of such saintly mothers we notice that they all share the virtue of patience. Patience is a sign of wisdom and experience.

It is a spiritual discipline that accepts the unfolding of God’s plan over time. What these women do for the glory of God they do with no guaranteed outcome, sometimes for decades. They believe that serving God throughout their lives and through the lives of their children is the ultimate reward.

Great saints, great mothers
Two great saintly mothers are honored during the month of May: Helena (250–330), mother of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, and Monica (c. 332–387), mother of Augustine. Evangelical Lutheran Worship commemorates Monica on May 4, and Helena is remembered on May 21. The sons of these faithful women were great historic figures who shaped the world and theology in ways that are still felt today.

Helena came to faith later in life, but once she embraced Christianity she did so fervently. She identified sites in the Holy Land where crucial events in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus took place and established Christian pilgrimages to sites that are still revered today. Her work was important to Constantine’s plan to make Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire.

And Monica’s steadfast faith influenced her brilliant but wayward son so deeply that he became one of the most prominent theologians and spiritual writers in Christian history. His work is still read today.

Helena, Mother of Constantine the Great
Anyone who has had the privilege of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land might have seen Helena’s work firsthand. Her early life is shrouded in legend, but we know that she was either the first wife or consort of Constantius, the co-regent of the Western Roman Empire, and that Constantine was her only son. After 23 years, Constantius left Helena to make a political marriage and she was banned from the imperial court. She did not see her son for nearly 20 years. When Constantius died, Constantine was elevated to his father’s throne. He summoned his mother to the imperial court, conferring on her the title of Augusta. He ordered that she have all rights of a sovereign and had a coin minted with her image. Helena converted to Christianity after Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge in 312, where he saw a vision of the cross and vowed to make Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire.

Constantine faced the difficult task of shifting the practices of the people to a new religion, suppressing the old Roman cult of the gods and encouraging the new faith. He enlisted his mother, believed to be about 75 years old then, to help with the transition. Historical documents show us that Helena embodied Christian virtues that were important in the Roman tradition as well: care for the poor, piety, and charity.

In the year 324, the same year Constantinople was declared a Christian city, Helena departed on her pilgrimage to Jerusalem to find the holy places where Jesus lived, preached, suffered, died, and rose from the dead. Along the way she founded many Christian churches and carried out many public works of charity.

Tradition tells us that in Jerusalem, Helena discovered the cross on which our Lord was crucified. The Temple of Venus there was believed to stand over the site of Jesus’ crucifixion. She ordered that the temple be thrown down and the site excavated, leading to the discovery of three wooden crosses. Which one was the right one? Legend has it that each one was touched to a sick woman and one healed her. That one was declared the True Cross.

Helena took that cross back with her to Rome in 327 and kept it at her palace, which was later converted into the Abbey of Santa Croce, that is, the Abbey of the Holy Cross. Constantine ordered the construction of a church over the traditional site of the tomb where Jesus lay, also identified by Helena, not far from where the cross had been found. Several other churches were soon built adjoining the tomb church, including one on the site said to be that of the crucifixion. All these small churches were later joined into one structure, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the most revered church building in Christendom. Rebuilt many times, it still stands in the Old City of Jerusalem today.

Helena had been abandoned by her husband and separated from her son for 20 years. Nonetheless, her patience and wisdom led her to become an important ally for her powerful son and an ardent follower of Christ.

The Christian world still honors Helena, the patron saint of archaeologists, for her work that helped the early Christian church establish its holy sites and its historical roots in the Holy Land. A lovely chapel dedicated to Helena is located deep underground within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Monica, Mother of St. Augustine
Helena’s achievements are notable on a historical scale and intricately tied into Constantine’s politics, but Monica’s fame comes from her spiritual life, which deeply affected those around her. Her relationship with Christ influenced and formed her son, Augustine, who became one of the most important leaders and thinkers in the history of Christianity. Monica’s story of faith is intertwined with her son’s conversion story, with both mother and son ultimately serving as powerful instruments of God. Her faith also clearly affected her only daughter Perpetua, a devout woman who later became the superior of a convent of nuns in North Africa.

What is known of Monica comes almost entirely from her son’s book, Confessions, in which he discusses his mother and her influence on his life. Monica was born of Christian parents in North Africa and was a devout Christian her entire life. She was married in her youth to a pagan husband and had three children with him. Augustine was the eldest. As a young adult, Augustine was, as he admits, wayward and lazy. He became a Manichean (a religious group), lived an immoral life, and began spouting heresies — and so Monica threw him out of the house.

As the story goes, Monica had a vision that urged her to reconcile with him and she let him come back home. Monica asked her bishopwhat to do about her son, and the bishop consoled her: "The child of those tears shall never perish." She considered his statement a prophetic sign that Augustine would become a Christian.

Augustine left North Africa for Rome and then Milan. Later he wrote that he was trying to get away from his mother, but Monica almost obsessively followed him. In Milan Monica met Ambrose, who intervened with Augustine and became Monica’s spiritual director. After 17 long years of prayer and pleading to bring her son to Christ,

Augustine finally embraced Christianity and was baptized by Ambrose in Milan. Monica was delighted, of course; she viewed the event as her life’s achievement. The two decided soon after Augustine’s baptism to return to North Africa together, but Monica died in the Italian town of Ostia on the way.

Many feel that the finest pages penned by Augustine in Confessions are those that detail the life and death of his mother. He writes that Monica’s last words to him were, "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."

Monica, the patron saint of mothers in difficult situations with their husbands and children, is an example of faith-filled patience and perseverance. The fruits of her love and commitment to God are still with us through the example of her saintly life and those of her children, in particular her brilliant son, Augustine.

Judy Chiarelli has toured the holy sites that Helena discovered. An alumna of Catholic Theological Union, she lives with her husband, Paul, in Chicago.