Question: St Augustine says that if God does not answer our prayers it is because we pray badly. Is that true?

Answer: Yes, it is true that St Augustine says that, but then that is not true, if I may say so. St Augustine says that there are three reasons why God at times does not answer our prayers, and he sums them up concisely in his typical Latin as “malum, male, mali”. Quite clear, isn’t it? Malum means that we ask for something bad, something which is not convenient for us, something that appears to us to be good but is not so in reality, and that is why God does not grant it, thus doing us a favour. Male means that we are asking badly, without the three conditions of every good prayer which are – always according to St Augustine – humility, trust, perseverance. If any of the three is missing, the prayer is not properly made, and so (always according to St Augustine) it fails. Malimeans that we ourselves are bad, that we do not behave properly, we do not deserve this favour from God, and so prayer fails once more. All this is what St Augustine says.

It is, I repeat, what St Augustine says; but it is not what Jesus says. Jesus said, without setting any conditions, in his great Sermon on The Mount, when, at the beginning of his ministry, he unfolded his programme before the crowd: “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you; for everyone who asks receives, those who seek find, and to those who knock, the door will be opened.” He didn’t say “if you ask properly, if you behave, if you pray with humility, trust, and perseverance, if you deserve it”. His offer was unconditional. If we are to wait till we become totally good, to ask only for eternal blessings, to make the perfect prayer, we could spare ourselves the trouble. Jesus simply said, “ask and you will receive”. Though this may lead to other questions. But you haven’t asked them.