Saint Augustine reminds us that our prayers of petition are not to inform God of needs we have and of which he is unaware. Instead, says Augustine, our petitions are a way of preparing our hearts to receive what God already knows we need and wishes to give us. Jesus exemplifies this in the feeding of the four thousand. No one in the crowd complained to Jesus of their hunger or asked him to provide food. Rather, it was Jesus who was aware of their need of food and proceeded to provide it. This is no less true for each one of us in our daily lives: God is always aware of our needs from moment to moment, and only waits for us to open our hearts to receive his grace and blessings. Our task is to trust this unfailing divine benevolence to be one step ahead of us in recognizing our true needs and at work preparing our hearts to receive all that is necessary for our eternal salvation. However, until we have the mind of Christ, to quote Paul, this is going to mean that some (or even many) of our prayers will not be answered in the way we expressed them, but according to the wisdom and goodness of God who will never give his children a stone when they ask for bread or a snake when they ask for a fish.
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