How can I pray better?
How do I know God hears my prayers?
How can I 'pray always, ' as Jesus commands?
Why must I ask for things God already knows I need?

Such were the questions that perplexed a young North African man, Augustine Aurelius (354-430), whose intense yearning for God led him into a profound and lifelong encounter with Christ in prayer.

There Augustine found answers to these questions and to countless more - answers not grounded in his own brilliance, but in prayer itself.

In time, Augustine became a bishop and a Father of the Church, and has long been numbered among her saints. Yet of all the Church's saints, not one expresses the longing for God more beautifully, or explores the nature of prayer more helpfully, than St. Augustine. His words speak to us today as freshly as they did to his contemporaries.

St. Augustine wrote many books, but never one devoted to prayer alone. Indeed, his teachings on prayer are scattered in many pla