Repetition of Prayers is against the Bible?

I was born and raised by a nominal Catholic Family. We never prayed a rosary together as a family. We never attended mass together. We are not a regular mass goer. My parents are just a typical Catholic during their early age and so we are. 

During my early age, I never experienced to be persecuted due to my beliefs in the Catholic Church. I finished elementary in a public school in Mindoro without experiencing such persecution. For that reason, I used to believe that the Catholic Church is indeed the True Church of Christ founded by Jesus. 

My parents enrolled me in a private institution run by Dominican Nuns from Roxas City during High School. From there, I learned most of the Catholic prayers like Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father, (although I already know those prayers but not the English version). Memorizing the prayers is a must because we have a religion subject and during exam prayers are included, so regardless of your religious affiliation you are required to memorize the Catholic Prayers.

Our place in our Province is dominated by nominal Catholics. There was no single individual there who knows the Catholic Faith very well. We are all Catholic by name. Even the members of the Church Ministry there are also ignorant of the Catholic Faith. In our Brgy. (which was called Faithful, yes our Brgy was called Faithful) we only have two popular religion. The Catholic Church who has the most number and the "Iglesia ni Cristo -1914" who came next. 

Due to lack of knowledge of the real teachings of the Church, (our community is also very far from the town proper, it almost lies adjacent to Mt. Halcon so its not so easy to reached) as time goes by many other religious organization entered our community and the most memorable to me is the Church founded by Eliseo Soriano the "Members of Church of God International" or commonly known to us as "Ang Dating Daan". 

I can remember during our High School, they used to invite people (specially Catholics in our place because Catholics there are very easy to defeat in a debate)to their Bible exposition wherein you can ask what ever you want to ask about the Bible and they will answer it with verses. Fortunately, I never attended any of their expositions held in our place during that time. However, my classmates (mostly are my friends) who were able to attend, became heretics to the teachings of Catholic Church.

Form then on, the thing that I used to avoid which is to be persecuted because of my religion came into existence. Of course I used to ignore them, I never believe whatever they are saying. 

One of the most unforgettable persecution that I encountered with my classmates was about the Rosary. One afternoon during our lunch break one of my classmate ask me this question:

Classmate: "Alam mo Randel, may isa akong tanong na hindi mawala sa isip ko." 

Randel: "talaga? ano yun?"

Classmate: "Sabi kasi ng Ang Dating Daan, wala daw sa Bible ang Rosary, tapos bawal daw ang magdasal ng paulit ulit. Binasa pa nga nila sa Bible e, nakalimutan ko lang yung verse, pero sabi dun word for word "hwag magdadasal ng paulit ulit". 

During that time, I personally dont know why the Catholics are praying the rosary. I even don't understand why we need to do it everyday aside from the fact that its a command from our nun teachers. What had been my answer to my classmate is a simple statement that can be refuted easily.

Randel: e bakit ipinapagawa sa atin kung bawal? hindi naman siguro yan ipapagawa sa atin kung mali db? so may dahilan kung bakit ipinapagawa yan? at hindi yan masama.

I can feel that my classmate got more confused due to my statement but what can i do, I dont know how am I going to answer it. 

I finished High School without getting the answer to that question. Maybe you are asking: Why didn't you ask your nun teachers? We did. but we were not able to get the direct answer to the question.

Now let us know the truth. Did God really prohibit repetitions of prayers literally?

Let us first read the verse that they are using to accused the Catholic Church of violating God's command.

Matthew 6:7 ( King James Version)

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking..

This is the verse that anti-Catholics are using to accused us of violating God's commandment.  Now let us study the verse further.

Let us all remember that the one speaking in this verse is Jesus himself. When Jesus said, "use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking" (Matthew 6:7, NAB), He was referring to a belief of the pagans that a god would not listen to your prayer unless you used his correct title, and the title would change every day. Thus, the pagans would begin their prayer with every title they could think of in order to make sure their prayers would be heard (e.g., "O Great Zeus, O Master of Olympia, O Great Father Zeus. . . .") Jesus tells us this is vain because pagan gods don’t exist, and when we pray to God he hears all our prayers. We don’t have to worry about getting the right title.

In fact, Scripture gives us many examples of repetitive prayer. For example, in Matthew 26:36–46, Jesus prayed the same prayer three times. In Revelation 4:8, four living creatures are around and within the throne, and day and night they do not cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty." And then there’s the tax collector in Luke 18:9–14 who is beating his breast repeatedly and praying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" And let’s not forget Luke 11:1–4, where Jesus tells us how to pray: He gives us the Lord’s Prayer. Since most Christians pray the Lord’s Prayer from time to time, they are all "guilty" of repetitious prayer. But it is not vain prayer—after all; we merely are doing as Jesus taught us.

Any prayer can be prayed in vain. What makes a prayer efficacious is the attitude of the heart (cf. CCC 2559). And sadly, "If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain" (CCC 2562; cf. Matt. 15:8–9). 

Additionally, Because Matthew is the first book in the New Testament and the New Testament was Written in Greek.

Let us check this out...

In Greek:

proseuchomenoi de mE battologEsEte Hosper hoi ethnikoi dokousin gar hoti en tE polulogia autOn eisakousthEsontai

In the Greek scripture the word used is "battologEsEte".

The verb battologeo means to "stutter."

According to www.thefreedictionary.com (Stutter - A speech disorder characterized by spasmodic repetition of the initial consonant.)

The bible clearly states that This type of prayer is found in Hosea 7:14.

"They have not prayed to me sincerely, but instead they throw themselves down and wail as the heathen do. When they pray for grain and wine, they gash themselves like pagans. What rebels they are!"(Hosea 7:14)

I experience another persecution during college in the hand of the Iglesia ni Cristo members that converted two of my siblings. Those instance in my life lead me to study the Catholic Faith more deeper. 

And at present, I already part of those Catholic Apologist who are actively defending the Catholic Church in social medias such as Facebook and blogs.  Thank you.

If you are a Nominal Catholic who are willing to learn and defend the Mother Church. Help us by visiting 

The Splendor of the Church Website. Please like us also in Facebook.

Thanks.

-Randel Paul