As a young Protestant, this was one of my favorites to ask Catholics.

Why do Catholics pray

repetitious prayer like the Rosary when Jesus says not to pray vain repetitions
in Matthew 6:7?
I think we should begin here by quoting the actual text of Matt. 6:7:
And in praying do not heap up empty phrases (vain repetitions in KJV) as the Gentiles do;
for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Notice the context? Jesus said do not heap up empty phrases (Gr. battalagesete, which
means to stammer, babble, prate, or to repeat the same things over and over mindlessly) as
the Gentiles do We have to remember that the main idea of prayer and sacrifice among
the pagans was to appease the gods so that you could go on with your own life. You had to
be careful to take care of all of the gods by mentioning them, and saying all the right
words, lest you bring a curse upon yourself.
And remember as well, the gods themselves were immoral at times! They were selfish,
cruel, vengeful etc. The pagans would say their incantations, offer their sacrifice, but there
was no real connection between the moral life and the prayer. Jesus is saying that this will
not cut it in the New Covenant Kingdom of God! One must pray from a heart of repentance
and submission to Gods will. But does Jesus mean to exclude the possibility of devotions
like the Rosary or the Divine Mercy Chaplet which repeat prayers? No, he does not. This
becomes evident when in the very next verses of Matthew 6, Jesus says:
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then
like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will
be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our
debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors; And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;
but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses.
Jesus gave us a prayer to recite! But notice the emphasis on living the words of the prayer!
This is a prayer to be recited, but they are neither empty phrases nor vain repetitions.
Examples of Biblical Repetitious Prayer
Consider the prayers of the angels in Revelation 4:8:
And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and
within, and day and night they never cease to sing, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God
Almighty, who was and is and is to come!
These four living creatures refer back to four angels, or Seraphim, that Isaiah saw as
revealed in Is. 6:1-3 about 800 years earlier, and guess what they were praying?
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up;
and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two
he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called
to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his
glory.

Someone needs to inform these angels about vain repetition! According to many of our
Protestant friends, especially Fundamentalists, they need to knock it off and pray something
different! Theyd been praying like that for ca. 800 years!
I say that tongue and cheek, of course, because though we dont understand fully time as
it applies to angels, lets just say they have been praying this way for a lot longer than just
800 years. How about longer than mankind has even existed! Thats a long time! There is
obviously something more to Jesus words than just to say we should not pray the same
words more than once or twice.
I challenge those skeptical 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 for his steadfast love endures for ever 26 times in
26 verses!
Perhaps most importantly, we have Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, in Mark 14:32-39:
And they went to a place which was called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, Sit
here, while I pray. And the took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be
greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to
death; remain here, and watch. And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed
that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things
are possible to you; remove this chalice from me; yet not what I will, but what you will.
And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, Simon, are you asleep? Could
you not watch one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptiation; the spirit
indeed is weilling, 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 repetitious prayer, but he also commends it.
In Luke 18:1-14, we read:
And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose
heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded
man; and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, "Vindicate me
against my adversary." For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, "Though I
neither fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or
she will wear me out by her continual coming." And the Lord said, "Hear what the
unrighteous judge says. And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night?
Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when
the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?" He also told this parable to some who
trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others: "Two men went up into
the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and
prayed thus with himself, "God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners,
unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that
I get." But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but
beat his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" I tell you, this man went down to
his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled,
but he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Final Thoughts

Would any wife tell her husband, Hey knock it off! Youve already told me you loved me
three times today! I dont want to hear it any more! I think not! The key here is that the
words are from the heart, not the number of times they are said. I think that is Jesus
emphasis. There are some words, like I love you, or like the Our Father, or the Hail,
Mary, that you really cant improve upon. The key is that we truly enter into the words so
that they are coming from our hearts.
For those who do not know, the Rosary is not about "mindless repetition" so that God will
hear us. We repeat the prayers of the Rosary to be sure, but we do so in order that we may
keep our focus while we meditate upon the most important mysteries of the Faith. I find it
to be a wonderful way for me to be able to focus on the Lord.
I find it ironic that as a former Protestant who prayed much, and many words, before I was
Catholic, that it was far easier to drift into vain repetition when all I prayed was
spontaneous prayers. My prayers often devolved into petition after petition, and yes, I
tended to pray the same way, and the same words, over and over, over the years.
I have found praying liturgical prayer, and devotional prayers to have tremendous spiritual
benefit. First, these prayers are either from Scripture, or from the greatest minds and souls
who have ever walked the earth who have gone before us. They are theologically correct as
well as spiritually rich. They free me from having to think about what I am going to say next
and they allow me to really enter into my prayer, and into God. These prayers challenge me
at times because of their spiritual depth while they keep me from reducing God to a cosmic
bubble gum machine. Give me, give me, give
In the end, I have found, the prayers, devotions, and meditations of the Catholic tradition
actually save me from the vain repetition that Jesus warns about in the Gospel.
This does not mean that there is not a danger of mindlessly repeating the Rosary or other
such devotions. There is. We must always stay on guard against that very real possibility.
But if we do fall prey to vain repetition in prayer, it will not be because we are saying the
same words over and over in prayer as our Lord did in Mark 14:39. It will be because we
are not praying from the heart and truly entering into the great devotions Holy Mother
Church provides for our spiritual nourishment.

Tim Staples is Director of Apologetics and Evangelization here at Catholic Answers, but he
was not always Catholic. Tim was raised a Southern Baptist. Although he fell away from the
faith of his childhood, Tim came back to faith in Christ during his late teen years through the
witness of Christian...
more...
Chock full of guidance. Tim Staples found his calling. Thank you.
The question that comes to mind about praying the rosary is this, It wasn't invented until I
think about the 1300th century, if the people didn't need it prior to that time, why bother
with it now? Especially when Jesus gives us a guide as how to pray to Our Father in heaven.

It seems to me like Catholics are always on the defensive about things like the rosary,
statues or calling priests father etc.. Wouldn't it be best for the Catholic church to dispense
with such things rather than to have to rationalize a defense to include them?
In my former home town, there was a radio program sponsored by the "Blue Army", a
Catholic rosary organization. A group of their members would recite the rosary in record
time on the air. It would be hard for me to believe that those audible repetitive prayers were
coming from one's heart. As I also at one time, prayed the rosary while at the same time,
looking around in church during the Mass.
When I now pray, minus the rosary, I start my prayer by giving God thanks for my salvation
and for calling me and thanks for many other things. I then search myself for any sins if any
and confess them , I then present my prayer list of petitions and end my prayer with the
Lords prayer in Jesus' name. When I pray, I speak to God, like I'm speaking to you now and
not in some organized prayer as is the rosary.
Isn't this a better way of praying? To me it seems more personalized with the relationship
that I now have with the Father and Jesus.
What's your comment?
ED O.
December 21, 2014 at 8:23 pm PST

#3 janus barinan - Lapu-Lapu Ciyu, Cebu

Hi ED O.
Repetitive prayers become vain if not done heartily. You have to pray in mind and spirit.
People always pray everyday to be protected from sickness, accidents, or they make
requests to God, etc...isn't this repetitive prayer also? You mentioned that you pray to God
on your own format of prayer, do you do this prayer everyday? Isn't this a repetitive prayer?
The rosary is the gospel of our Lord Jesus said in prayer. You must also understand who did
Jesus refers to the vain repetitions to at that time. He was referring to heathens (pagans),
their repetitive prayers are in vain because their pagan gods cannot hear them. When you
pray repeatedly to God he hears them hence forth it is not in vain. We all do prayers in any
format we want and repeat them heartily many times as we want because it does not fall on
deaf ears.
Catholics should defend their belief because we are obliged to defend it. There have been
many misconceptions on Catholicism. People have hardened heart in understanding things.
If you want to understand why Catholics do what they do you must open your heart first. A
hardened heart blocks knowledge.