Postscripts From The Catholic Spitfire Grill

Matthew 6: 5-13 (NAB) "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. "This is how you are to pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,  your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.

'Babble' is significantly different than 'vain repetitions' which made it really unnecessary for me to ask "Why is it that the most important word translated in that passage is 'repetition'?" So I thought to use a more commonly used Protestant translation so I could ask that question. So here are the relevant verses in a widely used Protestant translation the New International Version.

Matthew 6: 7-8 (NIV)  And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 

Well that left me still unable to ask that question for this blog entry...Why is it that based on every interaction I have ever had with a Protestant regarding this passage of scripture they seem to argue from the atndpoint that the most important word in that passage is 'repetition'? What about the word it is translated from? 'Battologeo' Is it a word that means mere 'repetition' and 'vain' is simply a modifier that helps us to see that repetition itself is not strictly prohibited? (Such as that we see in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus asks repeatedly for the cup to be taken from him, and in the Parable of the Persistent Widow where Jesus praises perseverance in prayer, or in Revelation 4:8 where we see the angels in heaven surrounding the Altar and ETERNALLY singing "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.") It seems while the King James version uses 'vain repetitions' to translate that word. The New American Standard uses 'meaningless repetitions',  the Wycliffe New Testament translates the concept 'do not speak much'...uh-oh...how do you balance THAT with 'pray unceasingly'? However, if equally valid translations of that passage use the word 'babble' or 'stammer', or 'speak not much' perhaps the word 'repetition' isn't the essential component of the meaning of that passage? 

Perhaps a clearer understanding might be gained by not focusing on a single word?  It seems to me that phrases such as 'like the heathens' or 'like the pagans'? add quite a bit to the meaning of these verses. Can Our Lord truly be speaking against repeatedly using memorized prayers when He so clearly distinguishes between the Jewish culture and the pagan one? Wouldn't an equally apt  name for the Psalms be "The Jewish Book of Common Prayer"? Ancient religious Jewish culture was steeped with the use of memorized prayers. Prayers and Psalms said upon arising, upon washing one's hands, upon eating, at various times throughout the day, upon retiring..... So if Jesus was speaking against repeated, memorized prayers why contrast with the pagans? Why not the religious Jews if that was what He was speaking against? And why then in almost the same breath go on to teach the disciples a prayer? Why not just say to the disciples "you don't need my help just pray from your heart"? I wonder if that is because our hearts are so filthy (Proverbs 23:33 ...your heart utters disordered thoughts...) and we need the help of divinely inspired prayers such as those we find in Sacred Scripture...The Psalms, The Canticle of Mary (My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord....), The Canticle of Zachariah (Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel...), The Canticle of Simeon (Now let thy servant go in peace....)... to help us know what we should be praying? Certainly, my sinfulness leaves me less than in perfect communication with the Holy Spirit so is it sinful for me to lean on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit found in Sacred Scripture? Or from the inspiration of other holy men and women? Is it substantially different for me as a Catholic to say "St. so-and-so prayed with these words and I find them helpful as well..." to a Protestant who says "my pastor has advised me to..."? Is it only in the matter of prayer where we must lean on our heart alone? Why is it that the Protestant distinctive of 'sola scriptura' (that scripture is to be the sole rule of faith) does not apply to praying with the use of scripture since after all, the 'repetitive' prayers that I have been told so many times are WRONG are taken directly from scripture itself (The Our Father (the person I quoted above specifically spoke against the Our Father), The Canticle of Mary, The Misere, The Canticle of Simeon, etc.)?

Matthew 6: 7-8 [Douay-Rheims] And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you therefore like to them, for your Father knoweth what is needful for you, before you ask him.

Perhaps it comes down to why a person is praying? Is there a difference between the reasons we get on our knees? As I have meditated on this passage of scripture in the many different translations that I have referenced, it seems to me to be folly to concentrate on the meaning of the one word 'Battologeo' and how many repetitions it takes before it becomes 'babble' or 'stuttering' without taking into account that Our Lord also said 'as the heathens' and then goes on to give the disciples a prayer instead of telling them to just pray from the heart. But MOST of all I think it is crucial not to ignore this part "For they think that in their much speaking they be heard."

"For they think that in their much speaking they be heard." All of the translations that I read said it similarly. The crucial thing to balance against the 'babble' or the 'meaningless' or 'vain repetitions' was a heart issue. "For they think that in their much speaking they be heard."

Ladies and gentlemen, I confess to Almighty God and to YOU that I know I am heard by Our Lord every time I open my mouth. I am heard by Our Lord when I would rather He NOT hear me. I am heard by Our Lord when I speak and in the silence of my heart. I go to Him in prayer because it is good for ME and because He commanded it. I put my needs before Our Lord not because He needs to hear them but because it helps to keep me focused on the source of all grace in my life. I go to Our Lord in prayer because it opens ME up to His working in my life and I need that. I go to Our Lord in prayer because I am supposed to 'pray unceasingly' and I am a long ways from that and if I am going to get even close to praying unceasingly I am going to need some help and frankly, I am likely to say the same thing more than once.  I stand in awe of and teeter on the verge of covetousness for those whose heart is so pure that their thoughts are always raised to the Lord and they do not need the assistance of memorized prayers, scripture, and/or the words of other holy men and women to help them reach out to Our Lord in unceasing prayer. I spent more years than I can count trying to pray unceasingly with my own *heartfelt prayers....I can say that they were not 'babble' but 'drivel' is apt assessment. It wasn't until I let go of my pride and used the assistance of memorized prayers that my own *heartfelt ones (and let me just be clear there are lots of those as well) became something other than drivel and....to my amazement....began to move towards that 'unceasing' mark (although I am still a long ways from that goal).

May I ask for some Christian charity on the part of my Protestant brothers and sisters? It is those memorized, repeated prayers that have lifted me from a dead prayer life. My own efforts to develop a living prayer life without them met with repeated and abject failure. I suspect that there may be others like me out there. If your prayer life is all that you and the Lord would have it to be without memorized and repeated prayers, I salute you. I am not advocating that you should change a thing. I am telling you, that my heart is so sinful and impure that I need help. I will respect (although disagree with) your opinion that I am using crutches in my prayer life. And if you think that I am using crutches in my prayer life, would you please stop trying to kick them out from under me and those like me?

*as if a memorized prayer can't be 'heartfelt.' Why is it that so many people seem to assume that memorized prayers do not express the heart of those who use them? If I had a nickel for every tear I shed while using the words of Psalm 51 to pray I'd be able to buy something very nice indeed.