Could The Mormon Church Be The "true Church" Of Christ

[dianaiad]

I’m not depending on Wikipedia. I never do. I don’t consider it an authoritative or reliable source for any subject.

I checked the Missal. I checked the Daily Missal, the Weekly Missal and the readings for the entire Liturgical year that began in Advent 2008.

It’s just as I said. What you’re quoting is a phrase in one tiny portion of the Easter Vigil Mass. If you understood the Triduum, you would know that there was no Mass on Holy Saturday. It doesn’t make sense to have a Mass that day, the day in between Good Friday and Easter.

The “Holy Saturday” confusion may just be a confusion about the day of the week and the vigil mass. Easter Vigil is part of the Easter Sunday celebration, it begins late Saturday night and ends at midnight. It’s not considered a “Holy Saturday” mass, it’s considered a vigil Mass for Easter Sunday.

I wasn’t a Catholic back when Masses were said in Latin, but I’m sure someone will come along who was. I seriously doubt there was a pre-Vatican II mass written for or dedicated to the phrase you’re quoting but maybe someone will come along and let us know. There are some very knowledgeable people at CAF who have been Catholics longer than I have. For now, with all due respect, I’m not going to take the word of an English Lit professor about a Catholic Mass.

That last bit about reverence and modesty of dress for the Mass was disrespectful. I’d think a Mormon, especially if you have a Temple Recommend, would be a little bit more circumspect about such matters.

I’m sorry you felt it was disrespectful; it wasn’t meant to be. I got it from the article describing the changes that happened as a result of Vatican II, and the specific reference to kleenex was from a nun who was celebrating the ‘fresh air’ that Vatican II brought to the faith. She’s the one who mentioned Kleenex; not as a disrespectful slam towards modesty in dress, but rather that women were no longer forced to go to those lengths in order to attend services. She was also celebrating the differences in the habits nuns were allowed to wear after Vatican II…mainly so that it was easier to be of service to others when one is not bound up in medieval dress.

You do have a point about taking religious instruction from an English Lit professor. As for me, there’s enough shouting down of my quote from this mass that I’m going to shut up and wait for some Catholic authority to settle the matter.

Diana

 

[MelanieAnne]

(grin)

Well, I can get you the wording of the Mass, if you like. It’s pretty well known in the literary world, since it is a concept that writers have been working on for centuries.

It’s not something that is, as far as I can tell, a problem for Catholics. It is a simple acknowledgment of the paradox; without Adam and Eve’s sin, we wouldn’t be here, and there would be no need of a Savior–but the Savior’s advent was so incredible a blessing, that isn’t anything that results in it therefore blessed?

It IS a paradox, and worth examining for that reason, if no other. I can only admire the Catholics for not only acknowledging it, but for celebrating it. I rather wish you still did, because it’s something that should be thought about, even if you come down on the side of 'Adam and Eve were just horrible people and everything is their fault."

Diana I have the wording of the Exsultet. I’m not disputing that this tiny phrase you’re making such a big deal about is there. It says, in one phrase out of approximately three pages of the Easter Proclamation “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam”.

There are 50 pages to the Easter Vigil Mass. This is where many people are baptized and/or confirmed. This phrase has no starring role in that service. I’ve been to a few, including some fairly recently since I’m in the choir. I know the Mass.

I’m not saying the words aren’t in SOMETHING. I’m saying:

1. 
   *]There is no HOLY SATURDAY Mass, it makes no sense to have a Mass that day.
   *]There is no Mass “dedicated to” this little phrase.
   *]There is no Mass “written specifically for” this little phrase.
   *]This phrase IS part of a long proclamation towards the beginning of an Easter Vigil Mass that lasts about 3 hours.
   *]I doubt anyone pays attention to it during the Easter Vigil Mass because there is so much else going on.
   
   Writers make a big deal about a lot of things. That doesn’t make them theologians.

 

[dianaiad]

dianaiaid:

It’s not something that is, as far as I can tell, a problem for Catholics. It is a simple acknowledgment -]of the paradox/-]; without Adam and Eve’s sin, -]we wouldn’t be here,/-] and there would be no need of a Savior–but the Savior’s advent was so incredible a blessing, that isn’t anything that results in it therefore blessed?

uhmnn… huh? What’s with the strike outs?

 

[Arandur]

Essentially, it puts Mary on the same level as Christ – not in divinity, but as another being who never sinned and was conceived without original sin.

Unique for being conceived without original sin? Hardly. Adam and Eve were first. The whole point of Christ was to atone for their original sin, and so Jesus is known as the new Adam. In true chiasmic form (something most Smithians I know are pretty fond of ), Adam, then Eve, begets ultimately New Eve then New Adam, after which we have the full Atonement and eternal life.

Have you ever read C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra? Or other of his works where he explores the question of whether or not it is inevitable or necessary for a new creation, Adam and Eve, for example, to sin. Mormon theology seems to assume that a creation MUST sin (e.g., Adam’s “necessary” sin). Yet are there created angels who have always been faithful in the Lord’s service? When we get to heaven, will we sin anymore?

If freedom from sin is the only true and complete freedom (sin being slavery), then it seems that sin is disordered. If disordered, then not necessary for order.

Considering at the least that we should all be sinless in heaven, why should it offend you that God can by the same Grace protect someone from sin for a special purpose? Moreover, in the creation of Mary God was really just repeating what He had already done with Eve–why should that seem so problematic to you? And if Mary was preserved from original sin as were Adam and Eve, then need she have sinned? Seems to me it would have been pretty counterproductive to what God was trying to do in ushering in a new generation, making all things new, making a new creation, through Christ, for the leading lady of His “Eve” role to screw up again and break things all over again.

And where is this found in the bible? I mean just since you believe that all truth is found in the bible and just “grew” out of biblical doctrines. What biblical doctrine did this grow out of? Without changing the doctrine of course.

Check out ricko’s post #467. He highlighted a few of the relevant Scriptures. There are plenty more having to do with Mary’s role and her status as the Ark of the New Covenant. An “ark,” by the way, was a seat or throne that the queen mother usually was carried on and processed into battle ahead of the tribe she was queen of. The unusual thing about the Israelites’ ark was that it was empty. This was all foreshadowing God did to set us up for Jesus, the ultimate and eternal Davidic King with his Queen Mother beside him.

 

[dianaiad]

Diana I have the wording of the Exsultet. I’m not disputing that this tiny phrase you’re making such a big deal about is there. It says, in one phrase out of approximately three pages of the Easter Proclamation “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam”.

There are 50 pages to the Easter Vigil Mass. This is where many people are baptized and/or confirmed. This phrase has no starring role in that service. I’ve been to a few, including some fairly recently since I’m in the choir. I know the Mass.

I’m not saying the words aren’t in SOMETHING. I’m saying:

1. 
   *]There is no HOLY SATURDAY Mass, it makes no sense to have a Mass that day.
   *]There is no Mass “dedicated to” this little phrase.
   *]There is no Mass “written specifically for” this little phrase.
   *]This phrase IS part of a long proclamation towards the beginning of an Easter Vigil Mass that lasts about 3 hours.
   *]I doubt anyone pays attention to it during the Easter Vigil Mass because there is so much else going on.
   
   Writers make a big deal about a lot of things. That doesn’t make them theologians.

1. 
   I’m glad it’s still in there somewhere.
   
   Question: where do the words of the Mass stand in liturgical importance?
   
   I mean…are they considered authoritative…perhaps quotable in support of doctrine?
   
   I’m asking because I honestly do not know.

 

[Arandur]

I learned about it in the 50’s. And you prove my point.

“It was declared not to have ever truly existed”

Poof. Limbo’s gone. Sounds like a “change” to me, call it what you will.

Do you know how the Church determines ideas to be more than just ideas and actual truth? Or are you going to claim that we must consider every idea to be infallibly true?

 

[MelanieAnne]

uhmnn… huh? What’s with the strike outs?

I think what Stephen is trying to say is that without the sin of Adam and Eve, we wouldn’t have needed a Savior. He’s giving the Catholic interpretation of the phrase. It’s not that Adam and Eve needed to sin so that we could exist, it’s that their sin resulted in the need for Jesus to come.

I actually remember someone raising this question in our RCIA class. The idea that Adam and Eve “had to” sin was rejected by our teachers. Similarly, the idea that Judas “had to” betray Christ was also rejected.

Maybe seeing the context will be helpful. Here is the context of that phrase (I’m quoting right from the Easter Vigil Mass, the portion of the Exsultet where that phrase occurs.)

"This is the night when Christians everywhere, washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement, are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

"This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave. What good would life have been to us had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

"Father, how wonderful your care for us! How boundless your merciful love! To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.

“O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”

(The proclamation continues basically thanking God for the reconciliation achieved between God and Man through Jesus.)

 

[MelanieAnne]

Do you know how the Church determines ideas to be more than just ideas and actual truth? Or are you going to claim that we must consider every idea to be infallibly true?

Arandur, Bukowski knows better and he is still provoking this argument. I find it tiresome, how about you?

 

[ricko]

Some of those “Catholic” nuns are not really nuns at all but have left the Church or they are in disobedience to Rome. From the words coming from her mouth that nun sounds like one of them.

 

[ricko]

To believe that the fall was good because it brought Jesus is pure nonsense. The fall brought much pain and suffering and death for mankind. It was Gods plan that we would not have disobeyed or hope I should say. If the fall had never happened it would have been better for the world and we still would have had Jesus.

 

[Arandur]

We don’t feel a need to do so, and I would disagree with you that there is a difference in theology among believing LDS about the scriptures. It might be interesting to find specific examples where believing LDS differ over scriptural doctrine. I am not saying it isn’t true, and I am sure that there are probably differences, but I certainly doubt that there is a significant portion of believing LDS that disagree on any given doctrine.

How long have you been around MADB? I’ve seen really vigorous debates over very basic things among Mormons–and I’m not talking about details, I’m talking about major central contradictions. Just browsing through some old topics I participated in, there was one about this very subject that illustrated the problem (and it was commented about many other times on other threads):
mormonapologetics.org/index.php?showtopic=35948&hl=arandur
“How Does Something Become Official Doctrine?”

Other interesting ones that we’ve touched on here as well:
mormonapologetics.org/index.php?showtopic=36992&hl=arandurPhysical Body In Spirit Body’s Image?, or spirit body in physical body’s image?
mormonapologetics.org/index.php?showtopic=35973&hl=arandur
Can We All Be Christians?
mormonapologetics.org/index.php?showtopic=36047&hl=arandur
Are Non Mormon Christians Members Of God’s Church?
mormonapologetics.org/index.php?showtopic=36793&hl=arandur
“Is Mary Our Heavenly Mother?”

 

[dianaiad]

I’m not depending on Wikipedia. I never do. I don’t consider it an authoritative or reliable source for any subject.

I checked the Missal. I checked the Daily Missal, the Weekly Missal and the readings for the entire Liturgical year that began in Advent 2008.

It’s just as I said. What you’re quoting is a phrase in one tiny portion of the Easter Vigil Mass. If you understood the Triduum, you would know that there was no Mass on Holy Saturday. It doesn’t make sense to have a Mass that day, the day in between Good Friday and Easter.

Ok, I have here a mention from the CATHOLIC BULLETIN that discusses when a Catholic may take Holy Communion twice in a day. Evidently there are very few times when this is allowed: first, if one is given the “Last Rites” he is also given communion at the same time, usually–even if he or she received communion earlier in the day. The second exception was to avoid irreverence–if a priest drops a communion wafer on the floor, he is supposed to pick it up and reverently eat it himself. According to this publication, in 1973 an additional exception was made: a Catholic may receive communion twice in one day IF he attended the Holy Saturday Mass (which sometimes extended into Easter Sunday) and then attended an Easter Sunday Mass…or if he attended a Christmas Eve midnight mass and later attended a Christmas Day Mass.

According to “New Advent”, a Catholic site, Holy Saturday did indeed have special services assigned to it–not simply the beginning of the Easter vigil, but in the morning.

Perhaps we have a communication breakdown here; I assumed that any Mass that BEGAN on a Saturday could be said to be held on Saturday. Perhaps the Mass I am referring to is the one you are talking about, that three hour marathon vigil. I don’t honestly know. I’m certainly not going to argue with you about a topic you know more about than I do!

I read with some interest your objection to the phrase…as being a little known line buried in a marathon Mass. Is it a line, or a position, that should be ignored, or be ashamed of? It is, after all, not some throw away line by some lay Catholic looking to pad out an article; it is an officially recognized and approved line in a rather important religious ceremony; a Mass.

Not that it matters one way or another; the Catholic position on original sin is well known. This one line doesn’t change it; all it does, for me anyway, is make me respect those who wrote it; simply acknowledging the concept in praise to Jesus is rather impressive; saying that all things, even Adam and Eve’s sin, work toward the glory that is His.

 

[Arandur]

I stated it too strongly. But I think you do believe that all that was necessary for salvation is found in the bible and that tradition is simply an outgrowth and clarification of what is found therein, right?

So the question is at what point does an “outgrowth” become a “new plant”? Maybe a bad analogy, but my point is that gradual “evolution” of a doctrine is really a change in doctrine.

This may have been answered already, but no, not “all that was necessary for salvation is found in the bible…” The Bible (NT) didn’t come till long after Christ was assumed into Heaven and the original Apostles died. He revealed all that was necessary for salvation. It was not just contained in the Bible. It was contained in Tradition (“hold fast to the traditions…”) and in the Church (“the pillar and foundation of truth”). The Spirit will bring us into all truth, remembrance of all things–through the action of the the Church. The Spirit guides us through our understanding of this these things via the Magisterium, senses fidelis, Petrine office, against the measure of sacred Scripture and Tradition.

 

[Arandur]

OK let’s go there-- what exactly defines what is and what is not Catholic doctrine? You guys seem to be all over the place – same thing you accuse us of.

If you left the Catholic Church without knowing these things, you really did a disservice to yourself and to God.

The Nicene Creed is an essential profession of faith containing these dogmas. The Ecumenical Councils have defined other dogma and have been careful about what they declare as such. The Catechism is a compilation of those core teachings and explanations about them. It does include some speculation at times, but Catechisms are pretty good about stating what is definitively true (generally referencing dogma).

Where is the resurrection in Catholic doctrine? Pretty basic stuff?

Has that been declared dogma? Where can I find that written?

The Nicene Creed. Dogma.

 

[Stephen168]

It WAS a Mass held on Holy Saturday before Vatican II. I wasn’t aware that it was no longer held. (shrug)

The Felix culpa has never been part of a Holy Saturday Mass. To my knowledge there never has been a Holy Saturday Mass. The Felix culpa has ALWAYS been a part of the Easter Vigil Mass. There is a good reason you find it in literature and not religion classes. It means almost nothing theologically but is a great literary device.

“A Father abandons his young son in a small town never to see him again; the boy meets the love of his life and lives happily ever after.” Oh, felix culpa, that my father abandoned me!

It is a simple acknowledgment -]of the paradox;/-] without Adam and Eve’s sin, -]we wouldn’t be here, and /-]there would be no need of a Savior–but the Savior’s advent was so incredible a blessing, that isn’t anything that results in it therefore blessed?

Being abandon and the Fall are not good things!!

It doesn’t mean a thing one way or the other regarding anything that the Mormons believe…though it certainly indicates that the Mormons are not unique in their understanding of the Fall.

Mormonism is unique and irrational in there understanding of the fall.

 

[Arandur]

matt, I understand what you are saying, but there is a problem with it. You see, if every prophet that came after Jesus was a false prophet, we wouldn’t know anything at all about Him.

After all, HE never wrote a word (except for some drawing in the dirt…and we have no idea what it was He was doodling there). Everything we have of Him we have because of prophets who told us about Him, from Peter to Paul.

I’ve heard this before and really, I think your working definition of “prophet” is sloppy and uselessly imprecise.

In the times the Jews lived without active prophets, such as the (often cited) 400 year “silence” before Christ, did they not still have the Scriptures (the Law and the Prophets)? Did Jesus not still say that the Pharisees sat on Moses’ seat and people were to heed their teaching?

Something that has been revealed can always be repeated and studied. You don’t need to reveal it constantly over and over again. That is where your imprecision is. You seem to be saying that any reading or studying or understanding of God can come only through a direct prophecy, and then you extrapolate that to your “prophet”–despite the fact that even he does not do any such thing! Most of what your church leaders do is just repeat what has already been said, or explain it and study it in new ways, without new scripture-writing prophecy. So they do just what all other people of God have done–study and pass on that which has already been revealed. Your claim really makes no sense at all to me.

 

[Arandur]

You might want to begin with the Thirteen Articles of Faith, which (though Mormons really don’t like the word much) do comprise a 'creed."

the thing about Mormon Doctrine is that it is a great deal simpler than most people want it to be–both LDS and non. Many LDS want to be told what’s what, and the non-LDS don’t want to know that the core doctrine of the church is as tight, and as simple, as it actually is; they want to fold in everything some Sunday School teacher came up with seventy five years ago, especially if they can use it to contradict something someone else came up with forty years ago.

I know the Articles of Faith. Is that all of your doctrine, then? Everything else is free game? That’s a big wide field left open, and it certainly explains the diversity of contradictory opinion that non-Mormons encounter among Mormons.

Yet, if it were just the Articles of Faith, why do the CoC, Remnant, and Restoration branches all hold to the same Articles of Faith, yet believe wildly different things and recognize that those beliefs cause schism between you?

 

[Arandur]

I don’t know that it is in the catechism. However, you DO have a specific mass written for it, celebrated on “Holy Saturday.” One of the lines in that mass is felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem" which is translated “O blessed sin (happy fault) with which recieved as its reward so great and so good a redeemer.”

"The idea that the fall of man was both (a) necessary in order that God’s plan for history be fulfilled and (b) justified in respect of the merits of that plan as a whole stems both from (1) the postulate of God’s omniscience (He must have known even before he created Adam and Eve that they would fall, yet decided to create them nonetheless) and (2) that of His omnibenevolence (He would not have created a world that, viewed in its totality – the whole of universal history – was anything less than the best of all possible worlds *)."Glossary: "Felix Culpa" and "Fortunate Fall"

I didn’t find out about this in religious studies, but in English lit: the ‘fortunate fall’ is a very well explored theme, from Milton to Hawthorne. I found the fact that the Catholics actually have a Mass dedicated to it to be fascinating.*

Milton comes to quite a different conclusion than you about the “necessity” of the action, IIRC. So does C.S. Lewis, who explores the same themes, as well as angelic perspectives. I won’t get too far off on this tangent, though, as it gets down into predestination and the essential violence your concept does to free will.

If a “sin” were “necessary” and according to God’s Will it would not be a “sin,” would it?

 

[dianaiad]

Some of those “Catholic” nuns are not really nuns at all but have left the Church or they are in disobedience to Rome. From the words coming from her mouth that nun sounds like one of them.

Are you referring to the nun I referenced?

She wasn’t “one of them”

A great many modern nuns, in full fellowship with Rome, wear habits that are knee length, modest veils over full heads of hair, short sleeved blouses under jumpers…

Or sometimes no habit at all. The first nun I ever met was a Dominican nun on her way to her sister’s wedding in England. She was wearing jeans and a sweater. I understand that some orders view the habit as a ‘work uniform’ of sorts; to be worn when engaged in their callings and when they are at church, but not necessarily when they are 'off duty," so to speak.

There is a nun from a local order who attends teacher credentialing classes with me now. She has worn a very simple habit to class; a short veil, a blouse and a jumper–but most of the time she wears pant suits or jeans.

Are you telling me that all such women are at odds with Rome, or apostate or something?

 

[Arandur]

It WAS a Mass held on Holy Saturday before Vatican II. I wasn’t aware that it was no longer held. (shrug)

It doesn’t mean a thing one way or the other regarding anything that the Mormons believe…though it certainly indicates that the Mormons are not unique in their understanding of the Fall.

Joseph Smith wrote it up for Adam to actually say, in his version of the Bible, IIRC. That’s pretty institutionalizing.

That idea comes from our perspective never having known the state of Original Justice and reflecting back on what we do know. We would have had no need or feeling of lack had we always been an obedient people in constant communion with God.

If you want to look at the paradox of it, consider also that the terrible gravity of man’s sin was that God had to subject Himself to the death we caused to fix what we had done. Faithful children would have always known the intensity of God’s love and not have known the sorrow of separating themselves from God or of causing Him such sorrow.

We are infinitely blessed to have God sacrifice Himself to bring us to Him. We would have been infinitely blessed to have remained in His presence. Adam’s transgression was no point of honor.