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We continue to consider the lives of Augustinian Saints and Blesseds. Today we focus our attention on an Augustinian nun whom Pope Saint John Paul II called one of the “founders” of the Catholic Church in Canada: Blessed Catherine of Saint Augustine.

We are continuing this series of saints in the Augustinian tradition. Today we are looking at Saint Monica (323-387). Monica was born at Thagaste, Numidia Cirtensis, Western Roman Empire (present day Souk Ahras, Algeria. Her parents were north African and devout Christians. When she was about twenty-two, she was in a marriage by arrangement with Patricius (40) who was a Roman official. The mother of Patricius moved in with them. It was not an easy marriage. Patricius was verbally abusive to Monica and unfaithful to her. His mother was a difficult person to live with. By her patience and her prayers Monica was able to have both her husband and her mother-in-law become Christians just before Patricius died.

Today I am going to write about the Augustinian saint for whom Villanova University is named. Tomás Garcia y Martinez was born in 1488. He received his name Thomas of Villanova from the town in which he was raised (Villanueva de los Infantes, Ciudad Real, Spain).

One of the older buildings on the Villanova University campus was Tolentine Hall. I often went there to study when it became noisy in the dorm where I was living on campus. In time I became curious to find out more about the origin of the name of Tolentine Hall. I learned that it was named for St. Nicholas of Tolentine, the first Augustinian friar to be canonized after the Grand Union of the Order of St. Augustine in 1256. St. Nicholas of Tolentine is the subject of this week’s column.