In praying, do not babble like the pagans
Conversation in love is never just passing words to each other.
We hear, "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!" (Mt 6:7). It is not such a prayerful talkative to pray the Rosary. How can we reconcile the Prayer of the Rosary, in which a whole lot of prayers are offered to God, with these words of Christ?
We will speak about the Rosary at the end. Let us first consider the meaning of these words of the Gospel. Let us start with what they certainly do not talk about. Well, surely the Lord Jesus does not intend to discourage us from long and persistent prayer. After all, it was he who spent all nights in prayer (Lk 6:12; cf. 5:16; 9:18; 11:1; Mt 14: 23; Mk 1:35). And he repeatedly taught us that we should be persevering in prayer. One of the parables in which this instruction is to be found, the Evangelist begins as follows: "He told them a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary” (Lk 18:1). And in the parable, itself, as in another parable on this subject (cf. Lk 11:5-8), Christ the Lord tells us to bother God with our requests. Following him, the apostle Paul says: "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess 5:17).
What, then, is this verbosity in prayer that deserves to be condemned by the Lord Jesus? The two most important elements of the answer to this question are found in the Gospel. The Lord Jesus says, "They think that they will be heard because of their many words."(Mt 6:7) In short, their prayer does not come from love, it is not imbued with trust in God. They are characterized by a magical mentality, a foolish conviction that the words of prayer are a kind of means of payment, with which we can get from God the things we care about.
Moreover, behind such a prayer there are false notions about God, some naive ideas that we need to inform Him about our needs. Instead, says Christ the Lord himself, "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him " (Mt 6:8). These false notions of God were mocked by the prophet Elijah when the priests of Baal tried to force their idol to hear them: "Call louder, for he is a god; he may be busy doing his business or may be on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened!" (1 Kings 18:27). Indeed, the priests of Baal "They called out louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears according to their ritual until blood gushed over them (…) But there was no sound, no one answering, no one listening.” (1 Kings 18:28f).
The true God is quite different. Yes, not every prayer goes to God. But if a prayer does not go to God, it is not because God does not hear it and that it is necessary to cry out to God louder or longer. God does not receive prayer that comes from a dirty heart, especially if one does not even yearn for transformation. God, of course, hears such a prayer, but He turns away from it: " When you spread out your hands, I will close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood! Wash yourselves clean!" (Is 1:15-16).
Therefore, the Christian often prays to God: "LORD, hear my prayer; let my cry come to you!" (Ps 102:2). This prayer means: "Lord, deign to purify my heart, deign to fill me with love for You, because only then can my prayer be accepted by You." For this reason, persevering prayer is so precious in God's eyes. After all, God is not a tyrant who is amused by the fact that someone is dependent on him, and who delays hearing a request because he likes to be asked for a long time. Persistent prayer is needed by us, not by God. During prayer, man opens himself more and more to God's love and receives an understanding of his will. In general, prayer brings us closer to God – not automatically, of course, but according to the laws of love. So, if I pray, but in fact I am closed to God and to His holy will, it takes time for prayer to break through my heart and to become true prayer. Therefore, I should pray with perseverance, I should somehow trouble God with my prayer.
The soul of prayer is love. This sentence probably best sums up the teaching of the Lord Jesus on prayer. There are several things in prayer that are more important than the words it contains. The words of my prayer are, of course, something very important – in the sense that it is not indifferent to what words I offer to God – but there are at least three more important things in prayer.
I will try to show them, starting from the most popular expression of prayer, that it is a conversation between man and God. Well, the condition without which the conversation cannot even exist, is to establish a connection, have a relationship with the other person, a presence of this person. This is the first thing that is undoubtedly more important in prayer than words: to be in the presence of God, to be as someone who loves. Sometimes the closeness of a loving God is so intriguing to him that he does not need any words: I am simply in His presence, and I only wish that He would deign to penetrate to the end every cell of my body and of me. Even though I do not say a word to God at the time, it is undoubtedly a true prayer.
If I am with the One I love, I would like to talk to Him. Now, even in ordinary conversation, it is more important to listen than to speak. It is not even proper to stand in the presence of God and immediately rattle what I have to say to Him. Maybe God would also like to tell me something. This is why prayer needs to be done in calm and opening one's spiritual ears. Listening to God's voice is therefore also true prayer, even if I, in my part, do not yet say anything to God.
There is a third thing that is more important in prayer than the words I bring to God. Prayer is, after all, a conversation with God in love. Now conversation in love never consists onlyin passing words to each other. It does need words, but when I talk to the person I love, I would like to convey much more than words, in fact I would like to express myself. This also applies to prayer. Words are an extremely valuable tool of prayer, but I should also try to speak to God with my actions, my attitude towards life, and ultimately towards myself.
Therefore, I think that the pagan talkativeness in prayer criticized by the Lord Jesus also consists in not seeing everything that is deeper and more important in prayer than words.
Let us now look at the Prayer of the Rosary. It is a paradoxical prayer. There are many words in it, but its premise is not to say to God a single word ourselves.
The sacred words of the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation are meant to calm us down and create an atmosphere conducive to hearing deeply what God Himself has to say to us. At the same time, during this prayer we try to listen to the most important things that God has told people. It is about listening to what God has already said not only to me or to you, but to all humanity, to all its generations. In meditation on the Rosary, we try to listen to this divine message, which has been given to us not only in the vessel of human words, but in the only begotten Word, through his Incarnation, his saving death on the cross and his resurrection.
The prayer of the Rosary consists in the fact that the "Hail Marys" measure the time and constitute a kind of spiritual melody, calming my mind and senses, then the very center of my soul is opened to the Son of God, my Savior, who speaks to me not only with his teaching, but with everything that he has done for our salvation. The purpose of Rosary meditation is to absorb these salvific events into oneself. If we remember that the Holy Mass is more than a prayer (for it is a real – by the power of the Holy Spirit - presence of the saving sacrifice of Christ), can a Christian imagine a prayer more wonderful than the Rosary?
However, the splendor of the Rosary does not end there. It is a Marian prayer. In praying the Rosary, we try to do something objectively impossible: we try to look at the mysteries of our salvation as Our Lady saw and lived them and following her example, we try to receive them and saturate ourselves with them. Of course, it is beyond our ability to equally match her in loving Christ. After all, she was completely sinless and full of grace, and we are defective, and even if we trust God, we are unable to trust Him completely. However, the very fact that we try to match her – if we really try – brings us very close to Christ.
Finally, let us say what is most wonderful in the Prayer of the Rosary. Now, if we have already opened ourselves to Christ the Lord, who speaks to us with the Love which he shows us at the time of his visible coming among us; if we try to somehow match His Mother in opening ourselves to this Love, we are allowed to join Christ the Lord who intercedes for us before the Eternal Father. He intercedes precisely with his Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection, which penetrate us more and more through meditating in the Rosary. In this way we can bring to GodWords of which we would never be capable on our own, Words that are always effective, with the power to lead us to eternal life.
In short, the admiration that one hears in the Church about the Rosary has a deep justification. The Rosary is much more than a wise and effective meditation technique. It is an attempt to absorb the very essence of the Gospel.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george