"Man is a beggar before God."
"You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."
Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God:
"They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!"
Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.
Source: Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican.va)