The Rosary is repetitious, why?

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My nephew who is a Seventh Day Adventist and lives with me questions me whenever he sees me praying my rosary. His question is why do Catholics have to repeat the prayer so many times and that undoubtedly shows how repetitive it is. I have tried explaining to him but he doesn’t seem to get it and he doesn’t want to read any documents I find to defend the Church.

What do I say or do the next time I’m interrupted and questioned when I’m praying the Rosary?

Thanks,

Gloria
 
Stop and tell him that he is putting himself before God when he is stopping you from praying. If you have exhausted all means of trying to explain the rosary, the only thing left you can do is pray for his conversion.
 
Ask him if he prays the Psalms, and why are they so repetitive?

Psalms 136:1-6

Notice the repetition?
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures for ever.
O give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures for ever.
O give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures for ever;
to him who alone does great wonders,
for his steadfast love endures for ever;
to him who by understanding made the heavens,
for his steadfast love endures for ever;
to him who spread out the earth upon the waters,
for his steadfast love endures for ever.
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It keeps going.
 
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The voice focuses the mind. When I am speaking words I know by heart, over and over, my mind can be focused on things like God’s love and care. When I fall silent, it may be harder to focus. If someone finds it easier to focus without repetition, by all means, do so. The rosary is not a requirement for any Catholic.
 
If nothing works, just tell him to be grateful that we don’t play with rattle snakes… and by the way if you keep interrupting my rosary, I’m going to be the exception and get one!
 
Jesus, never said anything against repetitive prayer, just repetition that is vain prayer. After all did He not want us to repeat the ‘Our Father’ Or the persistent neighbor parable. Interpretations aimed discrediting Catholicism are so obvious. They throw the baby out with the bathwater
 
Repetition is a prayer technique used across many religions. It is soothing and it provides a backdrop for meditating, as with the Rosary, since we are supposed to be meditating on the Holy Mysteries as we pray, not just rattling off a bunch of prayers.
 
I don’t think using comparisons with other religions can ever sound convincing to a protestant. Maybe they do have a point here though.
 
I would reply his question with another question - “do you think the way I pray has anything wrong in it, and if yes what and why?”
 
Next to certain Baptist denominations (from which they germinated) the SDA are the chief Catholic haters it seems. They also reveal their ignorance of both Christ’s Church as well as the bible. Our Lord cautioned against VAIN repetitions. Public prayer and Pagan babbling.

Our Lord taught us exactly one prayer. That’s it. Are we supposed to offer it once and be done? Nonsense!

Our Lord used repetitive prayer (same words three times) with the Father in the garden at Gethsemane during His passion! Was Jesus being vain? Nonsense2.

Psalm 136 is the king of repetitive prayer. Should that Psalm be ripped out of the bible? Nonsense3.

Very sadly, the SDA have absolutely no concept of contemplative prayer, as their theology is paper thin. The rosary prayers are background music, setting a cadence to your contemplation of the mysteries of Christ’s life. Yet, they are still prayers, and no prayer has zero effect.

If nephew thinks contemplating the life of Christ is vanity, that would be Nonsense4.

They are true Christians, but they hate as much as they love.
 
It’s a common sense answer. If the Protestant does not want to have common sense, but just wants to pick and poke, then that’s his own failure.
 
Repetition, done right, is a way to get the judgemental mind out of the equation. Done really well, it can put a person in a Alpha state that leaves that person very receptive and open. It is a similar process to hypnotism, and to mantra meditation in eastern cultures. Add a vibrational quality to prayer, like with Gregorian Chant, and the process is even more effective. I am not saying all those examples are exactly the same or morally equivalent, I am just saying there is similarity in the cognitive processes involved.
 
po18guy said:
Our Lord taught us exactly one prayer. That’s it. Are we supposed to offer it once and be done? Nonsense!
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The Our Father doesn’t fall into the SDA category of “repetitive prayer”. I don’t know why not, though―my conversation with an SDA on another website didn’t get that far.
 
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Well I know when I am really trying to focus my mind on something I repeat it … I find it helps to keep my mind on what I want it to be on rather then a million other little things … I wouldn’t call it repetitious so much but that’s me I guess
 
Jaye said:
What do I say or do the next time I’m interrupted and questioned when I’m praying the Rosary?
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Well first, “don’t interrupt me when I am praying. That is rude. We will talk when I am done.”

Second, repetition isn’t a bad thing. That’s a misreading of Scripture and a failure to understand what it says.

Third, the Rosary is a meditation and the prayers are used in this fashion.
 
If you aren’t aware Seventh Day Adventists are radically anti-Catholic. They reject almost everything the Catholic Church teaches. Their very existence is based on the idea that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon, the Pope is the anti Christ, and the Catholic Church wrongly changed the Sabbath to Sunday. Their founding is also based on many flash prophets including Ellen G. White whose prophecy and interpretation are really more primary than Holy Scripture.

I say this because I don’t think your nephew is interested in learning about the Catholic Church and its practices. He is interested in destroying the Catholic Church. If he wasn’t then he wouldn’t be an Adventist. You need to be very careful since the more he strives to be a good Adventist the more he will strive to destroy the Catholic Church and your faith. You can certainly try to explain the Faith to him, but more importantly pray for him and don’t listen to any lies he tells to undermine the Church.
po18guy said:
Next to certain Baptist denominations (from which they germinated) the SDA are the chief Catholic haters it seems. They also reveal their ignorance of both Christ’s Church as well as the bible. Our Lord cautioned against VAIN repetitions. Public prayer and Pagan babbling.
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I don’t know. I think SDAs are actually the worst. They could be considered the worst simply because they are much more numerous these days. I think, shockingly, they are over two million in the IS alone.
 
“SDA” is a very broad category, just as all of bible Christianity is. There are conservative and more liberal factions, split-offs (Reformed SDA, Branch Davidians, etc.), so each community seems to have its own twist on things.

However, the SDA foundress and prophet Ellen Gould White (just look her history up!) is being stressed less and less these days. She was a fairly typical mid-19th century Catholic Church hater, except she was propelled by organic brain damage and strongly suspected mercury poisoning. After that, she began receiving her “inspired visions.” Yeah.

Ecumenism goes a long way, but like the JWS and LDS, they specifically target Catholic nations for “conversion.”
 
Here are some questions you can ask them in response to their question. I doubt if theological or phylosophical explanations will do. So let us see if Mother Nature can help us.
  1. The heart beats repetitively; if it stops we are gone. Same thing can be said about breathing.
  2. When we eat our pizza or whatever food, we do not take only one bite and fill satisfied. We have to repeat until we are full.
  3. The Earth rotates round the Sun once every 24 hours and so we have night and day. Can you imagine what life will be like if there is only darkness or only daylight. Yes the interval may be 24 hours but it is still repetititive. What can they say about this.
  4. What about the seasons that come and go every year. The wet season brings rain that make our crops grow and the dry season allows us to harvest and enjoy those crops. It is repetititive but once every year.
  5. How often do they pray and what favor do they ask from God. I bet they ask God for a given favor more than once in their lifetime. I cannot imagine them asking God ONLY ONCE to, say, recover from their illness.
6 The difference in the above examples is the frequency of the repetitions. I am not sure these examples will change their mind but to let them know that repetition is part of nature. Do not forget that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon and nothing good can come from Her. Never mind that the Bible they use to justify their belief was put together and protected by the Catholic Church.
 
When praying the Rosary, it’s not the Hail Mary’s which are the focus of our attention, but the mysteries of each decade, which we meditate on as we say the Hail Mary’s.

The Hail Mary’s serve akin to a compass needle pointing us back to the mystery, when we become aware that we have drifted away from the meditation.

The Rosary should be said contemplatively, rather than just reeling off prayers by rote.

Protestants idea about meditation lacks the depth found in Catholicism.

In fact, google the word and you’ll see sites claiming that contemplative prayer is Satanic.

Obviously they have no clue what they’re talking about,

Jim
 
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