Jesus cautioned against meaningless,
repetitious prayer that focused more on the amount of words rather than the
meaning of those words. A prayer, Jesus felt, should be more like a
conversation, speaking with a Father who knows our needs and loves our soul.
Any prayer that causes you to lose your
personal connection with God and finds you mentally drifting off while your
mouth says things your mind doesn’t acknowledge is wrong and not truly
“communication.”
It’s more like a mantra used by Hindus.
You would never walk up to your real father and keep saying the same thing over
and over again. He would think you are crazy!
However, sometimes a repetitious prayer
helps to focus our mind, driving a point home that we need to accept.
Hail Mary prayers that plead to Mary
also have no biblical precedent. Jesus never prayed to his mother, but to His
Father, God himself.
In Matthew 6:9, Jesus gave a model
prayer and started it out by saying “Our Father..” This is the way we must all begin our
prayers, praying directly to God, talking to him as if we were talking to our
own father.