Cornerstone Church

There once a a righteous mother named Monica, and she had a dearly beloved son who spent his youth in vanity and wickedness, and fell from true faith into false doctrine. That the righteous mother prayed for him every day with bitter tears. Years passed, and he left her in Africa, where they lived, and went to Italy. Every hope of his recovery seemed gone, and she told her grief to the bishop. "Fear not, Monica, he said; "the child of so many prayers will not perish." After some time she heard of him at Milan, and she went after him, now an old woman and a widow, and found him still unchanged. Daily was she to be seen in the cathedral of Milan kneeling in prayer for her boy, And giving abundant alms to the poor, that these her gifts might rise up as a memorial before God, and obtain for her what her heart desired.
Finally, after years of long-deferred hope, her prayer was answered. One day, while her son was sitting reading in his house, a friend, an officer in the army, came in and talked to him about the holy lives of some people in Egypt, of how they lived to God alone; how cared not for this world and its fleeting pleasures, but set their affections above on those celestial joys which alone can satisfy. When the young man heard this his heart began to tremble; he contrasted their estimate of life with his own; unable to restrain his tears, he rushed into his garden, flung himself under a tree, and burs ted in convulsive weeping. And when he had somewhat recovered himself,he took up the open book which he last been reading, and his eyes fell on the words, "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof" (Rom.13:13,14). Then man's heart yearned to tell all to his dear mother who, with perfect patience and trust in God, had continually prayed for her son from childhood, hoping against hope. Monica did not get to see the fullness of God's long-deffered answer to her prayer here on earth, for she died soon after her son's conversion. Her son's name was AUGUSTINE, and this child of her prayers, became one the greatest saints, bishops, and writers, the world has ever produced.


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