Truth & Beauty: St. Augustine on the Power of a Praying Mother

Augustine has almost nothing to say about his own father and what he does say isn’t good. However, he speaks fondly of his mother and was humbled by God’s grace through her life shown to him.

And now thou didst ‘stretch forth thy hand from above’ and didst draw up my soul out of that profound darkness [of Manicheism] because my mother, thy faithful one, wept to thee on my behalf more than mothers are accustomed to weep for the bodily deaths of their children. For by the light of the faith and spirit which she received from thee, she saw that I was dead. And thou didst hear her, O Lord, thou didst hear her and despised not her tears when, pouring down, they watered the earth under her eyes in every place where she prayed. Thou didst truly hear her.
— St. Augustine, Book Three, ch. 11.19