Office Of Readings | Week 29, Thursday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Letter Of Saint Augustine To Proba | We Do Not Know How To Pray As We Ought

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Office Of Readings | Week 29, Thursday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Letter Of Saint Augustine To Proba | We Do Not Know How To Pray As We Ought

‘We do not know what it is right to pray for.’

Saint Augustine turns to one of the most searching truths about prayer: that we do not always know what to ask of God. This confession, drawn from Saint Paul’s words in the Letter to the Romans, does not express ignorance of the Lord’s Prayer, but humility before the mystery of divine providence. Prayer is not the confident manipulation of outcomes but the surrender of the will into the wisdom of God.

Paul’s experience of the ‘thorn in the flesh’ reveals how uncertainty can become the ground of faith. Three times he prays for its removal, only to learn that grace, not relief, is the divine answer. ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ Augustine finds in this exchange the pattern of mature prayer: one that moves from petition to acceptance, from insistence to trust.

Suffering, for Augustine, has a double potential — it can harm or it can heal. Because we cannot see which way it will serve our salvation, we do not know rightly how to pray concerning it. The temptation is to ask only for its removal, but faith teaches us that the unseen good may come through endurance rather than escape. The refusal of a prayer may therefore be a deeper mercy, sparing us harm or pride.

Christ himself, in Gethsemane, embodies this transformation of the human will. His words — ‘Not what I will, but what you will’ — become the measure of all Christian prayer. Through that obedience, the disordered will of humanity is healed in him. To pray rightly, then, is to allow our desires to be conformed to this obedience, so that grace may perfect its power in our weakness.

A Reading From The Letter Of Saint Augustine To Proba | We Do Not Know How To Pray As We Ought

You may still want to ask why the Apostle said: We do not know what it is right to pray for, because, surely, we cannot believe that either he or those to whom he wrote did not know the Lord’s Prayer.

He showed that he himself shared this uncertainty. Did he know what it was right to pray for when he was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to bruise him, so that he might not be puffed up by the greatness of what was revealed to him? Three times he asked the Lord to take it away from him, which showed that he did not know what he should ask for in prayer. At last, he heard the Lord’s answer, explaining why the prayer of so great a man was not granted, and why it was not expedient for it to be granted: My grace is sufficient for you, for power shines forth more perfectly in weakness.

In the kind of affliction, then, which can bring either good or ill, we do not know what it is right to pray for; yet, because it is difficult, troublesome and against the grain for us, weak as we are, we do what every human would do, we pray that it may be taken away from us. We owe, however, at least this much in our duty to God: if he does not take it away, we must not imagine that we are being forgotten by him but, because of our loving endurance of evil, must await greater blessings in its place. In this way, power shines forth more perfectly in weakness. These words are written to prevent us from having too great an opinion of ourselves if our prayer is granted, when we are impatient in asking for something that it would be better not to receive; and to prevent us from being dejected, and distrustful of God’s mercy toward us, if our prayer is not granted, when we ask for something that would bring us greater affliction, or completely ruin us through the corrupting influence of prosperity. In these cases we do not know what it is right to ask for in prayer.

Therefore, if something happens that we did not pray for, we must have no doubt at all that what God wants is more expedient than what we wanted ourselves. Our great Mediator gave us an example of this. After he had said: Father, if it is possible, let this cup be taken away from me, he immediately added, Yet not what I will, but what you will, Father, so transforming the human will that was his through his taking a human nature. As a consequence, and rightly so, through the obedience of one man the many are made righteous.

Christian Prayer With Jesus

O Lord,
teach us to ask not only for what we wish,
but for what leads us to you.
When our hearts are troubled,
grant us patience in your will.
When our prayers are unanswered,
let us trust that your grace is sufficient.
May the pattern of your Son’s obedience
shape our desires and purify our hope,
until weakness becomes the dwelling of your strength.
Amen.

Glossary Of Christian Terms

Thorn in the flesh – A term used by Saint Paul (2 Corinthians 12:7) for a personal affliction permitted by God to keep him humble; its exact nature is unknown.

My grace is sufficient for you – God’s reply to Paul, expressing that divine grace sustains the believer even amid suffering.

Expedient – Useful or beneficial for salvation; Augustine often contrasts what is ‘expedient’ in God’s eyes with what seems desirable to us.

Gethsemane – The garden where Christ prayed before his Passion (Matthew 26:36–46), expressing both human anguish and perfect obedience to the Father’s will.

Mediator – Christ as the one who reconciles humanity with God through his obedience, suffering, and resurrection.