Babbling

"Jesus said to his disciples: "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.  Your Father knows what you need befofe you ask him." (Mt 6:7).  Then he goes on to outline the basic things upon which we should base our prayer, which has come to be known as "The Lord's Prayer" or simply, the "Our Father."  So often, it seems that we do babble on like the pagans, trying to remember everyone we've promised to pray for, or repeating over and over the same words because we are thinking of something else.  Jesus was trying to help us simplify our prayer, and yet his very own suggestion has become, for many of us, a rote recitation with no connection of heart or mind with what comes out of our mouths.  We need to slow down, even stop, and ponder, as Mary did, one phrase at a time, not just for a few seconds, but for a major part of our prayer time, and then repeat that phrase as a "mini-prayer" throughout the day.  Just the words, Our Father, can carry us through a fruitful prayer time.  We need not have many thoughts about it babbling in our brains, but we do need to absorb and digest the profound implications behind those two words by just sitting with them, just resting in them.  And so on, with "hallowed by thy name", "thy kingdom come"....There are seven petitions in the Our Father...enough for a week's prayer.  At this slow pace, no one will have grounds to accuse us of babbling, and, more importantly, we will have drawn closer to Our Father and our brothers and sisters and have prayed for them as we promised.
Bro. Rene