Five stain glass windows over the high altar created by the Harry Clarke Studio.
(Looking up from left to right over the High Altar):

Liturgy of the Hours: Augustinian Saints
The origin of this Augustinian devotion is not known. A legend, represented in many paintings, shows Mary appearing to Monica dressed in black with a leather cincture, in response to Monica’s appeal for guidance and consolation in her bereavement after the death of her husband, Patricius. Mary promised special protection and consolation to Monica and others who wore the cincture in her honour.
Augustine is the best known African religious, priest and saint. Born in 354 to Patricius and Monica, his formative years were lax in moral living. But through the prayers of his mother he was baptised at the age of 33 in Milan by Bishop Ambrose. He, and his friends, founded a monastery in Tagaste and Augustine later wrote a Rule for other monasteries that sprung up over the years there. The lifetime of Saint Augustine (354-430) covered a time of crisis and change. The Roman Empire was slowly disintegrating under the invasions of the surrounding peoples. From the time of his ordination (391) and since his becoming bishop (395) his people had been one with him in seeking God’s glory through the service of the church. To most people Augustine is the great thinker who definitively influenced philosophy, theology and spirituality as well as the charitable and social outlook of the Church. One should not overlook his contribution to monastic life for it was from this source that he drew strength for his great achievements. He died on August 28, 430.

As a wife and mother Monica suffered greatly. Her husband was hot tempered and irreligious, and her son wayward and contemptuous of her faith. She was a woman of courage and faith, who trusted in God. Her patience and her love won her husband to the Catholic faith, and after long years of waiting and persistent prayer her son too surrendered to Christ. Everything we know about Monica comes from her son’s writings. Not long before she died, as Augustine records in his Confessions, she and Augustine experienced and ecstasy of soul in which “for one brief moment” their hearts “reached up to Wisdom, the maker of all things, and left with him the first fruits of their spirits.” Monica was born in Thagaste, Algeria, in 331 or 332. She followed Augustine to Italy and saw him baptised in Milan. She looked after Augustine and the little circle of friends when they formed a community in Cassiciacum. On the way back to Africa, Monica died in Ostia near Rome in November 387, at the age of fifty-five. Her remains are venerated in the church of Saint Augustine in Rome.

Fr Liam Ryan OSA