Today, fruit and prayer are key words in the Gospel. The Lord approaches a fig tree and finds no fruit there, only leaves, and he reacts by cursing it. According to Saint Isidore of Seville, “fig” and “fruit” share the same root. The next day, surprised, the Apostles say to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered” (Mark 11:21). In response, Jesus Christ speaks to them of faith and prayer: “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22).

There are people who hardly ever pray, and when they do, it’s with the hope that God will solve a problem so complicated that they can no longer see a solution to it. And they justify this with the words of Jesus we have just heard: “Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours” (Mark 11:24). They are right, and it is very human, understandable, and legitimate that, faced with problems that overwhelm us, we trust in God, in some power greater than ourselves.

But it must be added that all prayer is “useless” (“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him”: Mt 6:8), insofar as it has no direct practical use, such as—for example—turning on a light. We receive nothing in return for praying, because everything we receive from God is grace upon grace.

So, is prayer unnecessary? On the contrary: now that we know it is nothing but grace, that is precisely when prayer is most valuable—because it is “useless” and “free.” Even so, there are three benefits that prayer of petition gives us: inner peace (finding Jesus as our friend and trusting in God is relaxing); thinking through a problem, analyzing it, and knowing how to frame it is already half the battle; and third, it helps us distinguish between what is good and what we might simply want on a whim in our prayer intentions. So, in hindsight, we understand through the eyes of faith what Jesus says: “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (Jn 14:13).