In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Tim Staples to discuss the concerns surrounding repetitive prayers in Catholicism. Tim dives into the teachings of Jesus and offers insights from his apologetics work to clarify these practices. If you’ve ever wondered about the contradictions in prayer, this is a must-watch!
Transcript:
Caller: Jesus said, when you pray, avoid vain repetitions of words, as a heathen do when you pray. And he taught us the Our Father. And yet, you know, Catholics, they do the Hail Mary that over and over again. And I just, you know, I’ve got about six books I’ve read on Catholic apologetics which have answered a ton of objections I had, but like this one, I still haven’t got a satisfying answer.
Caller: Maybe you could help me with that.
Tim Staples: Sure. Well, a couple of things. I have a little booklet here. In fact, this is aside my most recent booklet here at Catholic answers. It’s called 20 Answers Mary. And one of my 20 answers happened to be this one. But at any rate, here’s the key, my brother. The key is you’re at Matthew 6, 7, pray, not vain repetitions as the heathens do or as the pagans do. That’s a key phrase there. The. In fact, it’s funny, the Greek word there for vain repetition. It sounds like it’s babbling. In fact, one translation actually says sort of babbling on or speaking on and on, for they think they will be heard with their much speaking. The idea was here in context that the pagans believed they had to appease all of the gods. You had to say these prayers here and say these prayers here. Great image. For this is in Acts 17, when Paul goes to Mars Hill and they have all of these shrines everywhere, altars to all these different gods. And Paul says, I see you are a religious or a superstitious, actually people. And there was one shrine there to the unknown God. And Paul kind of used that to say, I am here to proclaim him to you, the unknown God, the one true God. But that gives you a sense though of the pagans, how they had all of these different shrines, altars, where they would have to do their incantations. And the thing is, you weren’t praying to get the gods into your lives. You wanted them out of your life. You’re appeasing them to take care of him, take care of him and so forth. And it’s a matter of saying the right incantations and making the right offerings. And what Jesus is saying is, no, that’s not what prayer is, just repeating rote prayers to get the gods out of your life. Absolutely not. And he gives us the Our Father. God is our Father. He’s not someone that you want out of your life. And you, oh man, we got to take care of this guy. But he is our Father who loves us and provides for us and the Our Father gives us a beautiful prayer that indicates exactly that. It begins with the worship of God, hallowed be thy name, holy is your name, goes through petitions and so forth. But here’s the bottom line. He is not saying that we can’t make repetition. Of course not, because otherwise he wouldn’t have given us a prayer to pray. And if you think, brother, that Jesus just meant, okay, just pray this one time, don’t pray it again. Just one time. No, that’s not the deal. Jesus gives us this prayer in the context of a culture where repetitious prayer was common. Go back to the Psalms. For example, my brother, in Psalm 136, you see over and over, his mercy endures forever his mercy. And remember, the Psalms were prayers. They were sung and chanted prayers. And it’s your mercy endures forever. Your mercy endures forever, over and over and over. If you go to, for example, Revelation chapter four. Eight, as I point out in my article there, do Catholics pray repetitious prayer@timstaples.com Revelation chapter 4, verse 8. John is peering into heaven and he sees the Heavenly Liturgy. And what’s going on? Well, among other things, there are four angels, cherubim, or actually seraphim that are praying. And what are they saying? Holy, holy, holy. Lord God, who was, are and ever shall be. Right praying that over and over. In fact, that text comes right out of Isaiah chapter 6, where Isaiah 800 years earlier had a similar revelation of heaven. And guess what he saw the same four angels. And guess what? They were doing the same prayer. Holy, holy, holy. So for 800 years at least. And of course, it’s been going on for eons of time, they are praying the same prayers. But the key is that’s not vain repetition, that’s the repetition of love. What wife would say to her husband, honey, you already said I love you today. Knock it off. I mean, come on, if it’s from the heart. Now granted, if it’s not from the heart and you’re just saying it because you want to spite your wife and I love you, honey, then yeah, it’s not going to be something that she loves, but in fact, to pray over and over. And remember when Jesus went in the garden of Gethsemane, we read that in Mark 14:36, how he says, father, if it be possible, let this cup pass. Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. He didn’t just pray that one time, he prayed it over and over. The Gospels tell us, right? So anyway, I give you lots more examples in my article and if you get the 20 answers booklet. 20 answers, Mary, I also have it there. But I’ll leave you with this, the key, my friend. And believe me, it is possible certainly for Catholics to fall and anyone, I mean, you can fall into that, the repetitious prayer, whether you’re praying a rote prayer or you’re praying spontaneously. I mean, I know as a Protestant how often when I prayed, I didn’t believe in repetitious prayer, but my goodness, my prayers were repetitious, especially when we had all night prayer vigils and things like that. I mean, you’d say the same things over and over because you run out of things to say, you know. And so what we believe as Catholics is that prayers like that Jesus gave us the Psalms and these prayers, the Hail Mary and so forth, these are lofty prayers that are theologically correct. They come mostly from Sacred Scripture, like the Our Father and almost all of the Hail Mary comes right from the Bible. These are prayers that lift you up. You can pray them and know you’re praying, you know, theologically correctly. The prayers themselves lift you up to heaven, whereas, you know, when you pray. Now, I always say we need spontaneous prayer because that vivifies our liturgical prayers. But we need liturgical prayers that keep our spontaneous prayers on track because our tendency is to turn God into a bubble gum machine. Right, the cosmic bubble, Lord. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. Thanks. Amen. Whereas these prayers like the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the rosary and so forth really keep us on right track. I know I went beyond your question there, but does that help?
Caller: Oh, yeah. I’m glad I call. I mean, I’ve heard people call in with these. The same question, different times at different stations is the most satisfying answer I’ve heard so far. So I really appreciate it.
Caller: All right, brother, God bless you. Remember that 20 Answers Mary. It’s a great little booklet there@catholic.com. all right, God bless. And don’t lose our phone number. Charles, if you’re working your way back to the Catholic Church, we’d be happy to take your call anytime. We’ll be right back with more Tim Staples.