Protestants and the rosary

Paternosters Blogspot ^ | February 26, 2007 | Chris Laning

[Frank Sheed]

I grew up Protestant in the Northeastern U.S., in an area with many Irish and Italian families, so most of my playmates when I was in elementary school were Catholic. This was somewhat (ahem!) before Vatican II, and both Protestant and Catholic kids were taught by their parents (and sometimes even in Sunday School) to regard the other with suspicion, if not downright hostility. My Catholic playmates, for instance, said they were told they would spend eternity in Hell if they (literally!) so much as set foot inside a Protestant church building.

Boy, have things changed. While there are still plenty of Protestants who believe the Roman church is the Scarlet Woman of Babylon, for the most part Catholics and Protestants now acknowledge each other as fellow Christians, are often fairly relaxed about attending each other's worship services, and I suspect that informal, unofficial sharing of Communion is more common than the authorities on both sides would like to think. There are still plenty of incompatibilities (women priests, to name one) but I don't see that degree of almost superstitious mistrust of the "other" any more.

The status of the Virgin Mary is a point of difference between Catholics and Protestants, of course, and that's one of the reasons Protestants tend to be rather wary of the rosary. Unfortunately, I think people brought up Catholic often demonstrate how little they understand about their "separated brethren" when they blithely suggest that Protestants can pray the rosary too.



There are four main points I can think of about the rosary that give many Protestants problems. Briefly they are (from the Protestant point of view):
(1) What about Jesus's prohibition of "vain repetitions" in prayer?
(2) Does the Rosary give Mary too much honor?
(3) Do saints actually hear the prayers of living people?
(4) Is it legitimate to ask saints for favor?

I should make it clear here that when I say "Protestants" in this discussion, I am not including modern Anglicans or Episcopalians. There are certainly Anglicans who do say the rosary, either in the same form common to Roman Catholics or some other form, such as the modern Anglican rosary (which I still want to write about sometime). But what Americans usually call "mainstream" Protestants (Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.), and essentially all of the more evangelical and conservative Protestants, are generally opposed to the rosary as a Roman practice, and that's who I'm referring to here.

As I've said, Catholics do sometimes cheerfully assert that Protestants, too, can "honor" the Virgin Mary and pray the rosary. But I've noticed that somehow, all the Catholic stories that circulate about Protestants praying the rosary tend to end with the story's Protestant becoming a Catholic. If those are the only stories you ever hear, the (inadvertent) message is "If you start praying the rosay, you'll become Catholic" -- as though the rosary were the first step down a slippery slope!

I noticed this on Rosary Workshop's "Why pray the rosary?" page and mentioned it to the website's owner, Margot Carter-Blair -- who shared my amusement, once I'd pointed it out. Margot is now looking for some good stories about Protestants praying the rosary who stay Protestant.

Hmmm. Looks like this is the start of another series of articles....



The first challenge Protestants frequently offer is Matthew chapter 6, verse 7, where Jesus says (in the original King James 1611 spelling): "But when yee pray, use not vaine repetitions, as the heathen doe. For they thinke that they shall be heard for their much speaking."

This verse has had various English translations. Wycliffe's version from around 1400 says: "But in preiyng nyle yee speke myche, as hethene men doon, for thei gessen that thei ben herd in her myche speche." ("But in praying, nil [do not] ye speak much, as heathen men do, for they think that they are heard in their much speech.")

The Bishop's Bible (1568) says, amusingly, "But when ye pray, babble not much, as the heathen do. For they thynke that they shalbe heard, for theyr much bablinges sake."

One modern version puts it: "And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words." In all the versions the next verse says "Therefore be not lyke them, for your father knoweth, what thynges ye haue nede of, before ye aske of hym."

The King James version, however, is so entrenched in the English language that "vain repetitions" is the actual phrase the debate tends to focus on. Protestants generally assert that any repetition of the same prayer over and over must be "vain" by definition, since God really only needs to be asked once, and repeating the same words doesn't add anything.

The usual (rather feeble) Catholic defense is to argue that Christ didn't mean to prohibit all repetition but only vain repetition -- which is a very incomplete answer, since it leaves open the question of how you tell whether it's vain or not.

I think there's a point here, though: saying the same thing over and over doesn't necessarily mean it's less sincere. Parents and children, husbands and wives tell each other "I love you" over and over, and it doesn't seem to mean any less to them for being repeated.

Protestants generally don't see that their own argument isn't completely consistent. There may be no particular virtue in repeating the same prayer over again, but Protestants will cheerfully pray the "Our Father..." weekly and daily throughout their lives anyway. Many Protestants are taught that "true" prayer is spontaneous and from the heart, expressed in one's own words or wordless desires -- but if that were literally followed at all times, we'd all be praying like Quakers, who only pray as they feel "inspired" to do so. But in fact, most Protestant worship services do include standard, pre-written prayers in which everyone is expected to join. I was brought up, for instance, saying one that begins "Almighty and merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep...." every Sunday without fail.

I think both sides would admit that the idea of saying a prayer 10 or 100 or some other "round number" of times is something humans have dreamed up for our own satisfaction, not something God particularly cares about. (100 is only a round number if you're using a base-10 number system, anyway!) So perhaps the question that needs to be addressed is whether or not it's a good thing to allow our human preferences for certain numbers to affect our prayers this way. I can certainly see that reasonable adults could have different opinions on this.

to be continued

posted by Chris at 11:04 AM  

[Enosh]

"... say, the Real Presence."

Believe it or not, we proddies also embrace the Holy Communion Sacrament. Now, if it is literal or figurative, that's one of those minor quibbles.

Honestly, I don't a big problem with either interpretation.

[Tax-chick]

As I said, there is lots of personal variation in the vary large spectrum of Christian belief. I’ve come across Christians who are keeping Jewish dietary law, and saying that Jesus’s “nothing that goes into a man can render him unclean,” with St. John’s comment, “Thus He declared all foods clean,” somehow didn’t apply to them.

[tiki]

There was a good program about the rosary on EWTN this morning but I was busy and missed most of it.

As a child I lived next door to a Catholic family of 12. If you were there when the Dr. came in after his evening rounds you were rounded up to say the rosary. Mind you, I only lived next door but I always stayed.

There are so many things that kept leading me to the Catholic church but this is one of them. I actually never heard the middle of the prayer because they stressed the 1st and last parts and the middle was a muddle. Hail Mary, full of grace, mumble, mumble, mumble, now and at the hour of our death.

One day 30 some yrs later, my co-worker was making copies of something that obviously wasn't work related. (It was ok, her parents owned the business) I have no idea why I asked what it was because it was none of my business and normally I wouldn't have. She said it was "How to say the Rosary" and she was copying it for her Catechism class. So I asked if I could look at it, and told her the above story and she gave me a copy. Little did I know....

[Uri’el-2012]

How do you reconcile the above with Matt 18:20?

For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them

58 posted on 06/05/2007 4:15:02 PM MDT by sandyeggo

It means I don't need ten for a "Minyan"

b'shem Yah'shua

[N3WBI3]

Your not translating vain correctly, from Matthew 6:7 the word vain is the Greek battologeo which means to stammer or repeat the same thing over and over again it as noting to do with vanity or the attention seeking he addressed in 6:5.

[Enosh]

"Transubstantiation."

I'll bet you say that to all the boys.

(Owww! You hurt my brain.)

[Blogger]

Quite true. Plus, praying the model prayer and meaning it is a far cry from the repetition of Hail Marys. Unless they want to admit Mary is near deity in the eyes of Catholicism, which I doubt any would be bold enough to say.

[pjr12345]

After reading your post I now realize that, not only am I not catholic, I’m not protestant either.

I’m just happy to be a Bible-believing Christian. All this extra-biblical mumbo jumbo only seems to confuse people.

[Enosh]

I didn’t follow the whole thing the other day, what was your conclusion on baptism’s relation to salvation?

[pjr12345]

No thread jumping!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1844649/posts

[Enosh]

I’m just asking your opinion, friend. Must a person be baptized in order to gain salvation?

[Frank Sheed]

Mine has the logo of Guinness, made at ST. JAMES’S GATE, Dublin, IE on the back, however.

[Frank Sheed]

We’d love you on our side wearing one.

;-o)

[Frank Sheed]

Your South African Pinotage is getting a cult following akin to my Guinness, Mrs. Tax.

[Flo Nightengale]

Most Protestants do not say the "Our Father" Let alone repeat it over and over.

Perhaps we don't "repeat it over and over", but almost every Protestant service I've ever attended has included the Lord's Prayer. I would say that most Protestants do say it. I don't believe that saying a prayer in the same way that Jesus taught us is vain and repetitious. If you repeat something as though it were some magical incantation, without any thought as to meaning, I might agree, but I don't think that's the case with most folks when they say these words. In fact, for me, the Lord's Prayer is often a way for me to begin to talk to God, when too many times my own words fail me.

[Patriotic1]

So... What about the angels praying repetitiously? Revelation 4:8: “...and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.”

And, the liturgy of the synagogue was (and is) filled with repetition and formalized prayer. Christ said “use not vain repetitions, as the heathens do”. Were the Jews heathens? They prayed (and still pray) the sh’ma twice a day and, in their liturgy, the Shemoneh Esrei, the Kaddish, the morning blessings, the Aleinu, etc. Check out a Jewish siddur (missal) sometime; does it look more typically Protestant or Catholic?