They certainly qualify as a power couple. Anicia Fortunia Proba was born in AD 357 into an aristocratic family in Rome and married Sextus Probus, a high-ranking Roman proconsul. Together, they became the wealthiest family in the Roman Empire. They also were won to Christ during their early life together and hosted Augustine of Hippo, the renowned bishop from North Africa, when he visited Rome. Proba became a widow at a young age and fled to North Africa with her daughter-in-law Juliana and her granddaughter Demetrius when Rome was sacked in 410. Proba joined a community of Christian women and gave away most of her vast fortune to support the church. She wrote to Augustine, asking him for guidance on how to pray. Augustine responded with a long letter in 412. He cleared up a question I’ve always had about the practicality of Paul’s admonition to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5.17). Augustine interpreted “pray without ceasing” as “desire without intermission” and then added, “to spend a long time in prayer is not, as some think, the same thing as to pray with much speaking.” A “superfluity of words” isn’t required. What we must foster is a continual desire for God. What, then, do we pray for? We pray for a happy life the way most people do. Yet if our greatest joy and supreme happiness are found only in God, worldly substitutes cannot possibly fill the void. A happy life, in the end, is knowing and loving God. We close with a memorable quote from Augustine, “To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him is the greatest achievement.”
Augustine leads us to pray: