I thought that thou wast silent ...

“ Then whose words were they but thine which by my mother, thy faithful handmaid, thou didst pour into my ears? […] These appeared to me but womanish counsels, which I would have blushed to obey. Yet they were from thee, and I knew it not. I thought that thou wast silent and that it was only she who spoke. Yet it was through her that thou didst not keep silence toward me; and in rejecting her counsel I was rejecting thee. ”

—St. Augustine, Confessions, Book IX, ch. x, 26

Happy Mother's Day To All Moms!

The above painting, by Ary Scheffer, shows St. Augustine and his mother St. Monica (Musee du Louvre, Paris).