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 before you ask him.
This tactic of the pagans is still a temptation for us today. When we're preoccupied with what we want we tend to strategize and create techniques to acquire it. When prayer is seen primarily as a way to get what we want we try to find a formula that never fails. We treat prayer like an incantation. If it didn't work right away, we assume, it must mean that more words are necessary. Rather than treating prayer like a conversation we treat it like a Christmas list or even a vending machine. We can fall into doing this even if the intention for which we are asking is objectively a good idea. We risk becoming like kids in a toy store screaming, 'Buy me that!'.
This is how you are to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven
The antidote to empty Pagan ritual is to know and to remember that God is our Father. Jesus taught us to pray in order that we could share his own eminently personal relationship to his Father with us. It was a relationship that was ultimately based on the trust that his Father loved him and wanted what was best for him. He never presumed to push for his own way but asked for his Father to give him what was best, knowing that he would.
hallowed be thy name
When we realize how good and loving is our God we will come to desire to hallow his name. Jesus wanted nothing so much as to see this realized. His whole mission revealed the Father to us since the one who had seen him had also mysteriously seen his Father (see John 14:9). Objectively, his name is holy in a way that nothing can change. But subjectively, in our world, and in ourselves, it often takes a second place. It is sullied by people who could care less about it. But it is sullied even more by we Christians who always fail to live up to the standard of holiness that demanded by the name of the one who said, "be holy, for I am holy" (see Leviticus 11:44).
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
If we can only realize how good and loving God is we will not be afraid to ask for his will, to prefer it to our own, and to know that there would be nothing so good for our world as for it to be accomplished perfectly. This doesn't always appear true. Easier options often seem appealing. Even to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane there was the temptation to prefer his own will to that of the Father. But he never doubted his Father's goodness and persisted in preferring his will to his own. For us, self-will tends to dominate, leading us to choose selfishly, leading, in other words, to sin. But Jesus taught prayer as a spiritual corrective that can bring us into line with the deepest truth of things, giving us strength in the face of temptation.
Give us this day our daily bread;
We ask God for our daily needs, for more of his living word, and especially for the bread of life that we receive in the Eucharist. This is what he wants for us as well, since he fed the hungry crowds as the good shepherd, taught them as the living word of God, and gave them himself under the appearance of bread and wine in the Eucharist. Here in this petition we finally ask something for ourselves. But by now in the Our Father we have so established the primacy of God that we ask in trust that he would measure out to us only what would be necessary and best.
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
In jubilee years debts were wiped clean. The Our Father is a jubilee prayer in which we ask for our own debts of sin to be forgiven. But in order to receive this we must be willing to commit to God's project of jubilee for our world. He wants everyone everywhere to be forgiven. And so anyone, including ourselves, who refuses to forgive our brethren is not yet on board with that plan. What gain have we from the grudges which we refuse to release? What benefit from stewing in the harm which others have done? Even for ourselves we can clearly see that there is no freedom until we forgive, even before the effect on others is considered.
and lead us not into temptation
We are called to recognize our own weakness, to remember that most of the reason we haven't fallen (if we haven't) is because God has been merciful in the temptations he has allowed us to face. On the one hand, he never allows us to be tempted beyond our strength and always provide a way of escape (see First Corinthians 10:13). On the other hand, if we ourselves forgetting our dependence on his providence. We risk relying on ourselves rather than God which is a recipe for failure.
but deliver us from evil
Evil is real. Without God's providence it would run roughshod over our world. Even in terms of the physical world which seems to have an abundance of evil, the only thing keeping it from being completely dominated by the devil is the power of God and the aid of his angels. The devil received power over the world such that he could offer it to whomever he chose, which we saw at the temptation of Jesus. But he did not receive such power as to turn it into hell. However bad the world might seem at a given time it would be unfathomably worse if God was not protecting us. But in our spiritual lives this protection is even more important. What the devil wants for us is not primary pain or sorrow, but damnation, that we be cut off from God for all eternity. But what God desires for us is salvation, life with him forever. He invites us to avail ourselves of his divine protection so that he himself can lead us safely home. Above and beyond our material concerns, this is what matters most. And it is a prayer that, when made persistently and in faith, is always answered.
So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.
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