HI Tom,
I should have clarified my response to you…not quite sure what you meant by spiritual and intellectual conflicts.
I offered my Mass for you today at our local sanctuary. I met a former Baptist, Afro American, who told me after she converted, that I was the first authentic Roman Catholic she had met in her life. She now reads the Oxford Review, has grown so much in her knowledge and devotion to the Blessed Mother, is very devout in traditional Catholic devotions, and once again retired in another state, leading her bible study comprised mostly of Anglo American Catholics.
I think the 20th century was a good example of the Great Apostasy. We see the losses now.
Somehow I see you as a casualty of those times where the ‘tail of the dragon’ dragged down a third of the stars in heaven…bishops who compromised with the niceties of the world. Pope Leo XIII, had an inner locution after Mass in the late 1890’s, a dialogue between Christ and Satan. Satan told Him he wanted to destroy His church. Christ gave His consent and asked him how many years would he like. Satan responded he wanted 100 years to destroy the Church, and so it was granted.
Pope Leo was so afflicted, that he composed the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. He asked that all parishes in the world pray this prayer right after Mass. In 1899, the year before the 20th century, he consecrated the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for the 20th century.
Ven. Catherine Emmerich saw a future council of bishops who appeared to be meeting in the fog. She also foresaw a strange church of the future to be led by some bishop that would call itself ‘evangelical’. Future times, she said, would be so afflicted to Catholics that they would not even be sure of the tenements of their own faith.
There was an alleged movement in the latter part of the 20th century to make the Church more protestant. We do not have the disciplines like before, and English speaking people are desiring to have the return of meatless Friday’s so we can share together the same penance that is easy to remember and fulfill.
The prayer to St. Michael after Mass was let go back then following Vatican II. Only remote areas continued to do so. Praying to St. Michael after Mass is making its come back in some very devout parishes now.
Jesus had grave forewarnings about becoming lukewarm, that He would spit us out.
What you experienced in a vulnerable time in your life, was lukewarm Christianity that compromised itself with the world.
I think the exemplary witness you saw of these Mormon youth is understandable.
I also want to mention as well, reflecting and praying for you last night, – I could not sleep for 2 hours in the night, – that without the Eucharist and the Mass, without the foundation of the apostles, you are leaving out missing links, the Eucharist being the summit of our faith.
You are looking too much at people, and you did not look enough at the actual physical presence of God in the Eucharist, Who resides among us.
Not giving attention to Our Lord in the tabernacle is one of the great afflictions against Christ in the Church today, the loss of Eucharistic prayer unbinding Satan. If only more Catholics paid attention to Him, and I myself need to give more time to Our Lord Who waits for us.
Our faith is wholistic, that includes the intellectual, very important, but the bigger element is that the Church is mystical, and that this mystical reality is realized in the Mass and the sacraments, and in the summit of the Eucharist, insured by the apostolic succession.
I simply find the Mormon claims that after Christ and His apostles left, then there was the great and gradual falling away from the true faith. That is why Catholics say Mormons appear to claim by their convictions that Christ failed in establishing His Church, and contradicting His promise He would remain with us, that He would teach us many more things in the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Pentecost was the beginning of the Church…the beginning…and not a foreshadow of the end of the true Church just so many years later. Just the opposite as I told you, that we were solidly established just so many years later after Christ’s death, resurrection, and glorious ascension into heaven, where He is joined to us at Mass and brings us before the Heavenly Father.
It cannot be said that the Mormons restored Christ’s wishes as there is now actual witness to the life of Christ 1800 years later… a great gap.
What merit does Mormonism have to say that it is fully ‘decked’ to restore that which is lost, implying that Christ and His apostles were inadequate to insure the life of Christ in His Church?, that Christ did not give the apostles authority to choose successors?
We are people of faith and reason. The Mormons’ claim that Christ and His witnesses were nulled upon their death, after giving them authority to found His church — meaning His Church that goes on – works against the belief in the grace of God in Christ’ resurrection, breaking the power of death, sin, and time, His atonement for our sins in His wounded but glorious triumph presence, is denying the very essence of Christ Himself.
This position of the Great Apostasy simply defies Christ’s mission for all of humanity.
The universal (in Greek, Catholic) Christian Church was set ‘in rock’ as ‘kmg’ described. Our 4 cornerstones are one, holy, catholic, and apostolic of the Church…
vs. Mormonism which has had over 3000 changes to its beliefs over the course of 200 years.
I think Mormonism is evolving into a humanistic Christianity with the help of reflecting and drawing from Catholic elucidations of the Christology and ecclesiolgy of Jesus Christ.
You can think im being rude or whatever, but i can care less if you or any other mormons feelings are hurt.
