Why do Catholics pray repetitive prayer like the Rosary?
As a young Protestant, this was one of my favorites to ask Catholics. "Why do Catholics pray" repetitive prayer "like the Rosary when Jesus says not to pray" vain repetitions "in Matthew 6: 7?"
I think we should start here by quoting Matt's actual text. 6: 7:
And praying not to pile empty sentences ("vain repetitions" in KJV) as Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard for their many words.
Notice the context? Jesus said that "do not pile up" empty sentences "(Gr. - battalagesete, which means stammering, stammering, praying or repeating the same things over and over again unknowingly) as the Gentiles do ..." We must remember that the main idea of prayer and of the sacrifice among the pagans was to appease the gods so that he could continue with his life. You had to be careful to "take care of" all the gods by quoting them and saying all the right words, so that they wouldn't have cursed you.
And also remember that the gods themselves were sometimes immoral! They were selfish, cruel, vindictive, etc. The pagans said their spells, offered their sacrifice, but there was no real connection between moral life and prayer. Jesus is saying that this will not cut him in God's New Covenant Kingdom! We must pray from a heart of repentance and submission to the will of God. But does Jesus intend to exclude the possibility of devotions such as the Rosary or the Chaplet of Divine Mercy that repeat prayers? No it does not. This becomes evident when, in the next verses of Matthew 6, Jesus says:
Don't be like them, because your Father knows what you need before asking him. Therefore pray in this way: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Come your kingdom. Thy will be done, as in heaven so on earth. Give us today our daily bread; And forgive us our debts, for we too have forgiven our debtors; And do not guide us in temptation, but deliver us from evil. Because if you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their transgressions, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.
Jesus gave us a prayer to act! But note the emphasis on living the words of prayer! This is a prayer to be recited, but they are neither "empty sentences" nor "vain repetitions".
Examples of biblical "repetitive prayer"
Consider the prayers of the angels in Revelation 4: 8:
And the four living creatures, each with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside, and day and night they never cease to sing: "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord Almighty God, who was and is and must to come! "
These "four living creatures" refer to four angels, or "Seraphim", whom Isaiah saw as revealed in Is. 6: 1-3 about 800 years earlier and guess what they were praying for?
In the year in which King Uzzi died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, tall and raised; and his train filled the temple. Above him were the seraphim; each had six wings: with two it covered its face, with two it covered its feet and with two it flew. And one called the other and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of its glory. "
Someone must inform these angels of the "vain repetition!" According to many of our Protestant friends, especially the fundamentalists, they need to eliminate him and pray for something different! They had thus prayed for ca. 800 years!
I say that tongue and cheek, of course, because although we don't fully understand "time" as it applies to angels, we only say that they have prayed in this way for much more than 800 years. How about existing longer than humanity! It's a long time! There is obviously more to Jesus' words than just saying that we shouldn't pray the same words more than once or twice.
I challenge those skeptics of prayers like the Rosary to take a serious look at Psalm 136 and consider the fact that Jews and Christians have prayed these Psalms for thousands of years. Psalm 136 repeats the words "because his constant love lasts forever" 26 times in 26 verses!
Perhaps more importantly, we have Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, in Mark 14: 32-39 (emphasis added):
And they went to a place called Gethsemane; and said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." And then he took Peter, James and John with him, and he began to be very distressed and troubled. And he said to them: “My soul is very painful, even to death; stay here and watch. "Going a little further, he fell to the ground and prayed that, if possible, the hour could pass by him. And he said, “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you; remove this cup from me; but not what I want, but what you will do. "And he came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter," Simon, are you sleeping? Couldn't you watch an hour? Look and pray that you will not be tempted; the spirit is really willing, but the flesh is weak. " And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again, he came and found them sleeping ... And he came a third time and said to them, "Are you still sleeping ...?"
Our Lord was here praying for hours and saying "the same words". Is this "vain repetition?"
And not only do we have our Lord praying repetitive prayer, but he also praises him. In Luke 18: 1-14, we read:
And he told them a parable, in the sense that they should always pray and not lose heart. He said: “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor considered man; and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, "Avenge me against my opponent." For a while he refused; but later she said to herself: "Even if I do not fear God or look at man, but since this widow bothers me, I will claim her, or she will tire me of her continuous coming." And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will God not claim his chosen ones, who weep for him day and night? Will it delay much on them? I tell you, he will quickly claim them. However, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth? "He also told this parable to some who trusted themselves to be righteous and despised others:" Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed thus to himself: “God, I thank you for not being like other men, extortionists, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of everything I get. "But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn't even have rolled his eyes, but would have beaten his chest, saying:" God, have mercy on me a sinner! " I tell you that this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. "
Final thoughts
A wife would say to her husband: "Hey, throw it away! You already told me that you loved me three times today! I don't want to hear it anymore! " I do not think so! The key here is that words come from the heart, not the number of times they are said. I think this is Jesus' emphasis. There are some words, like "I love you" or "Our Father" or "Hail, Mary", which you can't really improve on. The key is that we really get into words so that they come from our hearts.
For those who don't know, the Rosary is not about "brainless repetition" so that God will listen to us. We repeat the prayers of the Rosary to be sure, but we do it in order to stay focused while we meditate on the most important mysteries of the Faith. I find it a wonderful way for me to be able to focus on the Lord.
I find it ironic that as an ex-Protestant who prayed a lot, and many words, before I was a Catholic, it was much easier to go to the "vain repetition" when all I prayed for were spontaneous prayers. My prayers often passed on to the petition after the petition, and yes, I tended to pray the same way, and the same words, over and over again over the years.
I have found that liturgical prayer and devotional prayers have enormous spiritual benefits. First, these prayers come from Scripture or from the greatest minds and souls who have ever walked on earth and who have gone before us. They are theologically correct and spiritually rich. They free me from having to think about what I'm going to say next and allow me to truly enter into my prayer and God. These prayers sometimes challenge me because of their spiritual depth while preventing me from reducing God to a cosmic rubber machine from to chew. "Give me, give me, come on ..."
In the end, I discovered that the prayers, devotions and meditations of the Catholic tradition actually save me from the "vain repetition" that Jesus warns of in the Gospel.
This does not mean that there is no danger of repeating the Rosary or other similar devotions without thinking about it. There is. We must always be on guard against this very real possibility. But if we fall prey to "vain repetition" in prayer, it will not be because we are "always repeating the same words" in prayer as our Lord did in Mark 14:39. It is because we are not praying heartily and we are truly entering into the great devotions that the Holy Mother Church provides for our spiritual nourishment.