On his flight to Algeria, Pope Leo XIV urged Catholics to read St. Augustine’s “Letter to Proba,” calling it a masterclass on meaning in prayer.
Newsroom (14/04/2026 Gaudium Press ) Aboard the papal flight to Algeria on April 13, Pope Leo XIV offered pilgrims and journalists alike a glimpse into his spiritual reading list, highlighting a timeless guide to prayer written more than 1,600 years ago. Speaking with OSV News on the first leg of his journey to Africa, the pope commended St. Augustine’s Letter to Proba — known formally as Letter 130 — as “a beautiful and brief meditation that helps us make our prayer meaningful.”
The letter he praised was penned in A.D. 412 by St. Augustine of Hippo, a towering theologian and Doctor of the Church. It was written in reply to Proba, a wealthy Roman widow struggling with a passage from Romans 8:26, in which St. Paul admits that “we do not know how to pray as we ought.” Augustine seized on this uncertainty to offer what Pope Leo described as a masterclass in the interior dimension of prayer — one that transcends words and reaches into the desires of the heart.
“Augustine gives some wonderful guidelines and hints, if you will, about how our prayer can really be meaningful,” Pope Leo said, leaning into the pastoral tone that has marked his papacy since his election in May 2025. “He reminds us that prayer is not just speech directed to God, but the movement of the soul toward Him.”
For Augustine, true prayer was far less about eloquence than about persistence. He teaches that to “use much speaking in prayer” risks turning words into mere noise, while authentic prayer involves “the heart throbbing with continued pious emotion towards Him to whom we pray.” Prayer, he wrote, is “more in groaning than in speaking, in tears rather than in words.” That longing, Pope Leo observed, reflects Augustine’s view that every human being ultimately prays for the same thing: the happy life found only in the possession of God Himself.
Augustine tells Proba that the heart’s restless yearning is, in fact, the beginning of happiness — the soul’s desire for what it cannot yet see. “A happy life,” he writes, “is to be sought after, and this is to be asked from the Lord God. Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.” For Augustine, this eternal happiness is not fully comprehensible in earthly life, yet it remains the silent aim of every authentic prayer.
For Pope Leo, the connection is deeply personal. A member of the Augustinian order, he lightheartedly admitted that St. Augustine is never far from his thoughts. “After my election, someone joked with me, saying, ‘Don’t talk about Augustine,’” he said with a smile. “But I can hardly avoid it — especially now, traveling through Northern Africa, where Augustine himself was bishop of Hippo.”
Before landing in Algeria, the pontiff encouraged all Catholics to begin their journey into Augustine’s writings with The Confessions, the saint’s spiritual autobiography composed about twelve years before his correspondence with Proba. “It is a wonderful place to start,” he advised, praising its blend of humility and insight into the human soul.
This is not the first time Pope Leo has shared his favorite spiritual readings midair. On his return flight from Turkey and Lebanon in 2025, he had recommended The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, the 17th-century Carmelite whose reflections on finding God in ordinary moments sparked renewed interest among readers worldwide. Following the pope’s remarks, bookstores reported a surge in demand for the text — evidence that a single papal mention can send centuries-old wisdom soaring anew.
As his plane crossed toward Algeria, Pope Leo’s latest recommendation seemed poised to do the same for Augustine’s letter — reviving a fifth-century conversation about how to pray not with words alone, but with the longing of the heart.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from OSV News
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