The readings at Mass for the 29th and 30th Sundays this year C are about Jesus’ teaching on prayer. St. Augustine’s Letter to Proba, an extensive commentary on prayer for a Roman woman, is also read during this time in our liturgy. 

“Jesus who is true life itself taught us to pray not in many words as though speaking longer could gain us a hearing. After all, we pray to one who, as the Lord himself tells us, knows what we need before we ask for it.

  Why he should ask us to pray, when he knows what we need before we ask him, may perplex us if we do not realise that our Lord and God does not want to know what we want (for he cannot fail to know it), but wants us rather to exercise our desire through our prayers, so that we may be able to receive what he is preparing to give us. 

His gift is very great indeed, but our capacity is too small and limited to receive it. That is why we are told: Enlarge your desires, do not bear the yoke with unbelievers.”  (Letter to Proba)

Prayer enlarges, nourishes, and supports the desire for God that’s within us, Augustine says. God “knows what we need before we ask for it.”