50 Fun Facts About Prayer

The Lord's Prayer appears in which two New Testament gospels?

The two versions differ, and the Matthean form is the one most Christians actually recite.

How many petitions does the Lord's Prayer contain?

The first three address God; the remaining four concern human needs such as daily bread and forgiveness.

The closing doxology 'For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory' is absent from which text?

Protestants usually add it; the first-century Didache does include a doxology, so the habit is ancient even if the words are not original.

What is the Latin name of the Lord's Prayer, taken from its first two words?

A church on the Mount of Olives displays the prayer on tiled panels in well over a hundred languages.

The rare Greek word 'epiousios' in the Lord's Prayer is usually translated into English as what?

It modifies 'bread', and scholars still argue about what it originally meant.

How many obligatory daily prayers does Islam prescribe?

They run from before sunrise to night, each with its own name and its own window of time.

Which of the five daily Islamic prayers is performed directly after sunset?

Its call to prayer also signals the moment to break the fast during Ramadan.

Muslims face the direction of which structure when performing salah?

According to tradition the earliest Muslims prayed toward a different city before the qibla was changed.

What is the name of the ritual washing required before Islamic prayer?

Each unit of prayer, a rak'ah, then follows a set sequence of standing, bowing and prostration.

Salah ranks where among the Five Pillars of Islam for Sunni Muslims?

Only the shahada, the declaration of faith, comes before it.

The Islamic call to prayer, delivered from a minaret, is called what?

A shorter follow-up call, the iqama, then summons those already inside the mosque to line up.

Who is traditionally regarded as the first muezzin in Islam?

He was a freed slave of Abyssinian heritage, chosen for his voice.

Which extra line appears only in the dawn adhan?

The line, as-salatu khayrun mina n-nawm, is a nudge to anyone tempted to stay in bed.

A Catholic rosary is arranged in groups of ten Hail Marys. What is each group called?

Each set is preceded by an Our Father and traditionally followed by a Glory Be, and five sets make up a session.

Which pope added the Luminous Mysteries to the rosary in 2002?

The addition raised the total number of mysteries from 15 to 20.

Tradition holds that the rosary was given by the Virgin Mary in 1208 to which saint?

The apparition is said to have taken place in the church of Prouille in France.

The Hail Mary is built from two greetings to Mary recorded in which gospel?

The angel's words at the Annunciation are joined to Elizabeth's at the Visitation.

The Hail Mary is central to which Catholic devotion, said three times a day to a bell?

Millet's famous painting shows two peasants pausing in a field to pray it at dusk.

During Eastertide, which Marian prayer replaces the thrice-daily Angelus?

The pope leads whichever is in season from his window over St Peter's Square every Sunday at noon.

Which Protestant theologian composed the Serenity Prayer in the early 1930s?

A twelve-step fellowship picked it up from a 1941 newspaper obituary and spread it worldwide.

Which organisation adopted the Serenity Prayer in 1941 and made it famous?

Members first called it simply 'the AA prayer'; Hallmark put it on graduation cards from 1962.

In what year was the 'Prayer of Saint Francis' first published?

It appeared anonymously in a small French Catholic magazine, La Clochette, and cannot be traced to Francis of Assisi at all.

Which British PM paraphrased the Prayer of Saint Francis on the Downing Street doorstep in 1979?

Mother Teresa also made it part of the morning prayers of the Missionaries of Charity.

The Shema, the central declaration of Jewish faith, begins with a verse from which book of the Bible?

It is traditional to recite it morning and evening, before sleep, and as one's last words.

What small case do Jews fix to their door frames, following the Shema's command?

The command to bind the words on arm and head is fulfilled by tefillin.

The Amidah, the core of Jewish services, is also called the Shemoneh Esreh, a name meaning what number?

Confusingly, the weekday version now contains nineteen blessings.

The Mourner's Kaddish is recited for how long after the death of a parent?

Remarkably, the text never mentions death; it is a hymn praising God.

Most of the Kaddish is written in which language?

It was the everyday language of the Jewish people when the prayer was composed, and it requires a minyan of ten to recite.

Kol Nidre, chanted on the eve of Yom Kippur, is technically not a prayer but what?

Its name means 'all vows'; the cantor sings it three times, and Max Bruch turned the melody into a cello piece.

Roughly how many written prayer notes are placed in the cracks of the Western Wall each year?

Twice a year they are collected and buried in the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

How many beads does a traditional Hindu or Buddhist japa mala usually have?

Some malas use 27 beads counted four times; the Sikh mala also has 108.

The 99 beads of an Islamic misbaha correspond to what?

Many strings use 33 beads counted three times instead.

The English word 'bead' comes from an Old English word meaning what?

Counting prayers on strings is so old that a statue of a Hindu holy man with beads dates to the third century BC.

Eastern Orthodox Christians count the Jesus Prayer on a knotted rope known by what name?

Also called a chotki in Russian, it typically has 100 knots.

Which anonymous 19th-century Russian classic follows a wanderer learning the Jesus Prayer?

The prayer's most common form is 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

In which direction does a Tibetan Buddhist most often spin a prayer wheel?

That follows the direction in which the mantras inside are written, matching the sun's path across the sky.

Which mantra is most commonly placed inside a Tibetan prayer wheel?

The earliest wheels, driven by wind, have been used in Tibet and China since the fourth century.

On Tibetan prayer flags, which colour symbolises water?

Blue is sky, white is air, red is fire and yellow is earth; horizontal strings are called Lung ta, the 'wind horse'.

The Gayatri Mantra, one of Hinduism's most important prayers, comes from which Veda?

It is dedicated to the solar deity Savitr and traditionally taught to boys at the upanayana thread ceremony.

Which Sikh guru composed the fixed opening and closing sections of the Ardas, the set prayer of Sikhism?

Worshippers stand with folded hands while it is recited, and its final line may not be altered or omitted.

The first Book of Common Prayer was published in 1549 during the reign of which English king?

Thomas Cranmer shaped it; the 1662 edition is still the official prayer book of the Church of England.

Which edition of the Book of Common Prayer remains the official prayer book of the Church of England?

Its wording was little changed from Cranmer's, and phrases from it have entered everyday English.

In the traditional canonical hours, which office is the night prayer said before retiring?

Vespers is sung at the lighting of the lamps; Lauds greets the dawn.

The Rule of St Benedict tied daily prayer to a psalm verse praising God how many times a day?

Benedictines came to call the prayers the Opus Dei, the 'Work of God'.

The US National Day of Prayer is observed on which day?

Truman signed the original bill in 1952; a 1988 amendment fixed the date.

Which US president signed the bill creating a National Day of Prayer in 1952?

Billy Graham had called for a united national prayer during the Korean War a few months earlier.

The word 'amen' is most commonly translated into English as what?

It occurs 30 times in the Hebrew Bible, and in Revelation Jesus is himself called 'the Amen'.

What was the traditional direction of Muslim prayer before it was changed to Mecca?

Tradition places the early qibla at Bayt al-Maqdis, the site of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Kesh temple hymn, one of the oldest surviving prayers, dates from roughly when?

The Egyptian Pyramid Texts of about the same era likewise contain spells and incantations addressed to the gods.

Friedrich Heiler's Typology of Prayer systematically lists how many types of prayer?

His categories run from primitive and ritual through Greek cultural, philosophical and mystical to prophetic prayer.