Today's readings are about prayer, specifically prayer of petition. "Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find..." It seems all I have to do is pray for something and I will get what I ask for. And yet, we all know from experience that that is simply not true. I pray to win the lottery but don't even get one of the minor prizes. I pray for the recovery of a person with cancer but the person dies. Is Jesus telling lies? Are there some hidden conditions I am not aware of? The answer lies in the second half of the passage. First, Jesus asks whether a father would offer a stone to his son asking for bread or whether a snake would be offered instead of a fish. "If you, then, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him." In other words if we human beings, in spite of our shortcomings, care for the well-being of our children, then surely God, who is all good, will be infinitely more caring. The problem is not that God does not answer our prayers; the difficulty is that we tend to ask for the wrong things. Jesus is saying that God will give "good things" to those who ask. In fact, as Jesus says elsewhere (Mt. 6:8), God already knows all our needs. Then why pray at all? The purpose of prayer is for us to become more deeply aware of what our real needs are. It is a prayer to be the kind of people we ought to be. It is difficult to see that prayer not being answered.