If repetitive prayer means that saying The Our Father is included in that phrase, then we would not have had it handed down all these years. Indeed, Jesus Himself would have said: Say this only once and never again. No. What He said was: When you pray, pray thusly (paraphrased). What are we to make of this? Did he violate His own dictum against repetitive prayer? Or, did His statement have a more direct object? The prayers of heathens and idoloters. Jesus, being a good Jew, participated in the prayers offered in the synigogue, and in which many repetitive prayers were recited. Are we to do less?