Prayer and repetition

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jesusmademe

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Laudetur Iesus Christus!
Sometimes people, including me, that prayer is just repetition (not neccesarilly vain repetition). I can’t imagine Jesus telling his disciples to just repeat a prayer, eg Lord’s prayer. This would be stupid repetition which leads nowhere at all.
I dont understand all this focus in the Church on repeation certain words/sentences which we call prayer. Lord’s prayer is not a magic mantra.
On the other hand much of our social greetings eg How are you, is not there because we care (although we might) but because we are told to do so. The same thing is with prayer sometimes. Let’s just do the job , our daily task. What a weird and strange Lord we would have then.
How do you deal with this?
 
I deal with it by not overthinking it. The Faith is not comprised of what I can imagine to the exclusion of what I can’t imagine.
 
Blessings
Prayer has different formats. Jesus gave us the OUR FATHER, as a perfect prayer format. Say,”Hi” Give praise & gratitude for what we’ve been given. Petition for need . Ask for forgiveness. Ask for help avoiding temptation. Say the OUR FATHER! Say our words of prayer in the OUR FATHER FORMAT. Then, we can freelance. We can pray in tongues. We can pray scripture prayer.
It’s where your heart leads you.
Jesus, HELP is a prayer.
 
Whether prayer is efficacious or not, depends on whether you’re turned toward God in your heart when you pray. If you pray without being turned toward God, your prayer is useless regardless of whether it is repetitive or not – in fact it wouldn’t even be prayer in the true sense. Conversely, if you are turned toward God while praying, then your prayer is always valuable even if it is repetitive – and even when it is silent. Sometimes repetitive prayer can be good when you want to get away from excessive thinking. You can “drown out” other thoughts with prayers (repetitive or otherwise), and as long as you do so while being turned toward God in your heart, that is a very useful way of praying.
 
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I have often had the same thought. Born in the late 40s, educated in parochial schools in the early 50s for 8 yrs, repetitive prayer was what I was taught. I admire people who can so easily really talk to God, Jesus and/or the Blessed Mother.
Though I say the rosary, the Divine Mercy chaplet and other taught prayers, using my own words when speaking to God, I often feel as if I’m not sincere or that I am trying to impress Him.
There are times when life just gets a little too tough to handle, those are the times my soul cries out to God full of sorrow and sincerity.
I will continue to pray repetitive prayers, knowing that God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy hears me.
 
jesusmademe said:
I dont understand all this focus in the Church on repeation certain words/sentences which we call prayer
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Repeated prayers are a background for meditation in many cases. One isn’t concentrating on the words of the prayer as just using it to get into the mindset of connecting with God. As I’ve said before, such repetitions are a technique used across many religions and in non-religious contexts, such as self-affirmations where a person repeats to themself something positive like “I got this, I’m a winner!” many times to develop his positive attitude. Repeating a prayer over and over develops the attitude of connecting with God.

I have done embroidery and counted cross stitch. In both cases, many little stitches combine to make a beautiful, complex picture at the end. Similarly, I think of each little prayer I say in a Rosary as making up a beautiful, complex large prayer.

If you don’t like the idea of repeating prayers in your private devotions, then don’t do it. But please refrain from judging other people’s prayer preferences or methods. It seems to be a common misunderstanding that people just mumble the words of a prayer X number of times without thinking. In reality, those who aren’t thoughtful also usually aren’t going to put in the time to say a repetitive prayer.
 
I recommend that you read what St Teresa of Avila had to say about prayer in “The Way of Perfection.”
 
I read, in a book on how to pray (sorry, I forget the title and author), that repetition is one way to pray. We repeat the Hail Mary in the rosary. There’s nothing wrong with repetition in prayer from what I have read and what others here seem to think. This might be a good question to ask your spiritual advisor.
 
A woman in love with her husband would not get fed up of hearing her husband tell her that he loves her .

Without going into detail , think of the verbal communication between the husband and wife as “they make love” .

I’m going off for a walk . It is the time of year when I am renewing my Act of Consecration to Jesus Through Mary . A priest has suggested that I pray “Come Holy Spirit living in Mary , help me to be faithful to my Consecration to Jesus through Mary” . I keep repeating the prayer slowly and gently as I walk for about twenty minutes . As the minutes go by the prayer becomes my own . It enters my heart .

It works for me , but then I’m not everybody .

If it’s not your way of praying then choose another one which works for you .

It’s no big deal .

What works for one doesn’t work for another .
 
Prayer elevated us to a closer dimension w God. We can feel His love & hear His quiet words. Free form prayer is my usual prayer style, incorporating scripture verses. The more emotional I get, the more effective my prayer feels. Repititious prayer can be a calming prayer to help us focus on God in times of distress. St. Theresa of Avila has this prayervthat says,”DO NOT GET DISTRAUGHT. DONNOT GET FRIGHTENED! All things passaway! God.never changes. He who has God has everything. Patience brings about answers.
It gives me the idea, that I shouldn’t cry. I’d be a Chatty Kathy doll saying,”I LOVE YOU! I love you! “
It feels a little phony, not getting distraught when troubles come. SIGH! Keep a diary & list prayers and answers.
Luke 11:1-4 New King James Version (NKJV)
11 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
3 Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our debts
For we also forgive those, who are indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”

You’ll know you’ll be praying correctly as your Spirit fills w love during your prayer.
 
Actually, when I pray the Lord’s prayer each morning I not only use the official translation I also use an official liturgical melody from the hymn book. I sing this prayer every morning.
When you say it you have different ways of saying it. When it is sung you don’t even get to choose the tempo.
How do you pray it? Sing it? If so, what version do you sing?
 
@jesusmademe

Pray the Our Father and other prayers, as if your praying for the first time with Love. Repetitive prayers are said with Faith ,some misunderstand repetitive prayers are babbling ,its not so, but doubting God and repeating it is what Jesus is saying not to do so.Other wise ever the Scriptures would be considered repetitive!

Philippians 3:1 Finally, my brothers and sisters,rejoice in the Lord.To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.
 
jesusmademe said:
I can’t imagine Jesus telling his disciples to just repeat a prayer, eg Lord’s prayer.
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We cannot decipher faith by our judgement and vision alone. Holy Mother Church advised on using repeated prayers then it is alright to do so. The Bride would not advise against the Groom who is Christ.
If you personally have a problem with it you have to options:
  • ignore your own opinion and practice repeated prayers following the teaching of the Church and then observe if this type of prayer serves you spiritually or not
  • in private pray whatever you feel like it but in public if the congregation prays repeatedly follow the Church and pray with them.
    God bless!
 
jesusmademe said:
On the other hand much of our social greetings eg How are you, is not there because we care (although we might) but because we are told to do so. The same thing is with prayer sometimes. Let’s just do the job , our daily task. What a weird and strange Lord we would have then.
How do you deal with this?
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I think your analogy is good. And my answer is that I deal with both repetitive prayer and standard greetings similarly: I try to put intentionality behind it.

When I say “hi! How was you day?” Or I instinctively respond to someone “i’m Good, how about you?” I try to pause mentally, and make sure I mean it. I also try to slow myself down in that moment to actually listen to their answer, and to genuinely care about their answer. It might be an opportunity to minister. Maybe they need God’s love or reassurance, and I’m the only one who will listen in that moment, or maybe i’m the only one who will listen all day. I can’t know the answer to that, but I try to make sure I’m intentional enough in my listening to their response, that the opportunity is there if they need it.

It’s the same with prayer. It’s easy to hear a blessing or just repeat the same prayer before every meal. It’s easy to say the words of a rosary but think about what you have to do tomorrow rather than the mysteries. But, if we can catch ourselves in those moments, we can work to bring that same intentionality to those “repetitive” prayers. Just as I try to genuinely mean the words I say when I ask someone how they are, I try to reflect on and genuinely mean it when I say “bless us O Lord and these thy gifts…” for the 21st time that week. The God of all Creation deserves it, after all.

Although I sometimes forget to bring that intentionality, I am getting better. And I think that kind of repetitive work to bring intentionality to these circumstances adds a fair degree of spiritual discipline to your life, which itself is beneficial. Improvement comes with discipline.
 
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jesusmademe said:
all this focus in the Church on repeation certain words/sentences which we call prayer.
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It should be noted that this is not just a practice of “The Church”.

It’s a practice done in many different religions, with the goal of focusing the mind and encouraging a meditative state.

We are not repeating the prayer 100 times because God needs 100 repetitions in order to hear it, nor is it a “magic mantra”.
It is a prayer technique.

Just like how swimmers learn to swim faster and better, and pianists learn how to hold their hands and strike the keys for certain effects, there are techniques for prayer.

If you think a technique is “weird” or it doesn’t work for what you’re trying to do, then use something else.
But calling it “weird” and asking “How do you deal with this?” is like we all have some problem with it.
It’s a totally normal way to pray for those of us who have been doing this technique our whole lives…

As children we simply learn to repeat prayers the same way kids learn to repeat other things over and over - kids repeat their times tables, they repeat advertising jingles, they repeat nursery rhymes, they repeat their favorite jokes, they repeat prayers, it’s what kids do.

As we get a little older we learn to meditate on top of the prayer and be comforted by saying the prayer over and over and meditating on top of it. It’s very relaxing and a good way to pray.

So it would be nice if you didn’t speak of it in such insulting words, even if you want to pray a different way, yourself.

It gets a bit tiresome to have to constantly explain this when like I said it’s not something that only Catholics do. If people thought about it for more than 1 minute before they called it names, they’d see it’s just like how Rob says, like a mom repeating a lullabye to her kid or like lovers saying “I love you” over and over to each other. People are awfully quick to judge prayer styles that they aren’t personally familiar with. It gets old really fast.
 
How I deal with it is by saying part of the Liturgy Of The Hours. Prayer there is not repetitious, as there are different Psalms and canticles for each day.

If you are interested but don’t know where to start, you might check out the Magnificat, which has a reduced version of the LOTH. If you want a simple but more complete version, Shorter Christian Prayer will give you the 4 week format.
 
Because I know the words so well, by heart, when I pray the Our Father, I can devote much more of my mental energy to meditating on the character of God, enjoying his presence and his love, and thinking with gratitude on all he’s given me. I’m saying the words and meaning them, but I’m also communing with God more intentionally because I’m not thinking up the words as I go. I am more focused on him, rather than on the words I’m forming to say to him. In that sense it can be a very beautiful thing.
 
Jesus told the story of two people who went into the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other was a publican. The Pharisee made a long extemporaneous prayer while the publican remained in the back. He repeated over and over again, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.”
It was the publican who went home justified.
 
When the unbearable is present, sometimes the only prayer that can be said is, “ JESUS!” Then, praying in tongues,bubbles up out of our Spirits, and caress God.
 
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