Pastor's Corner

May, 2001

Saint Augustine probably was the best-known Christian theologian of all times. With his brilliant mind, he was able to integrate doctrines with Christian living and brought theology to unparalleled level. To him, doctrines were not theories to be learned, but life-style to be had. The way he crafted the Doctrine of Grace was particularly outstanding because he was able to integrate the undeniable grace of God, his personal experience, and how a person should live in grace.

Though born in a Christian family with a mother who taught him about Christianity and prayed for him, yet Augustine had a rebellious childhood. Living away from home as a teenager, he began to live contrary to everything he was taught as a child. He threw aside his Christian Faith to follow heresies of that time and lived a life of immorality, which included theft, drunkenness, and in and out with prostitute.

Finally, when he was twenty-nine years old, God, in His grace, turned him around. God’s intervention wasn’t a coincidence; it was a direct result of continuous prayers of his mother, Monica. She prayed through her son’s sin, his engagement of heresy, and his fight with God. Those were hurting years for Monica, as any mother of a rebellious child knows. Finally, she went to a bishop, pleading for him to reach out to her son; but he refused because Augustine had a reputation as a clever orator and a vicious debater. The bishop comforted her by saying that a mind so brilliant like his would eventually see through the deception, but she was not consoled by it, so she continued to plead with him through rivers of tears. With that, the bishop said, "Go, go! Leave me alone. Live on as you are living. It is not possible that the son of such tears should be lost."

The son of such tears continued to run from God and his mother. He ran for many more years. Then, one day, he listened to Ambrose, bishop of Milan and a prominent churchman of the day. Tired from years of running from God and living a corrupted life; convicted and contrite for his sins, he turned to embrace the grace of Jesus. "The hands that rock the cradle" has more power than she ever imagined. The knees of those who rock the cradle with persistent prayers and tears will bring God into her children’s life. In the parable of the Persistent Widow in Luke 18, Jesus told us that we should always pray and not give up. No matter what your needs are, never stop praying. God will intervene!