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Jesus_123
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**+ I posted this on another thread . . . thought it might help here . . . **
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Peter_John
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I want to augment this with an account from a formal print publication not the Internet. It is the same sort of anecdotal account I often heard in Fireside presentations as a Mormon. (A “Fireside” is the LDS term for an inspirational meeting in an informal setting, usually someone’s home, but for larger audiences it can be in an auditorium. Generally it features some prominent guest speaker, and a comfortable question and answer protion).
When Blessed John Paul II visited one American city (Boston as I recall) the local police were responsible for assuring security of everyplace that he went. In one church where he was scheduled to appear they took dogs through treined to sniff for people who may have been hiding. When they were near the tabernacle (the place where we secure the Body of Christ - the hosts that have already been blessed in non-Catholic terms) the dogs became agitated and marked as if a person were hiding there – nobody was there.
For all that I realize that Adoration seems a silly thing to do. In our understanding of God, presence of a part of God is the presence of all of God. As the bread once blessed (even according to your Book of Mormon) is literally the Body of Christ, Jesus himself is among us – unto the end of the Age – in the blessed hosts. When we gaze upon even one of these we gaze upon the full presence of God.
On a more personal note, even as a Catholic I was unsure what to think of this practice until attending Eucharistic adoration one day, While gazing upon the host (it helped me to think of it as a piece of skin stretched in the monstrance-the stand displaying it) I felt compelled to read – of all things – the Song of Solomon. I read the entire book without even once having a carnal thought, despite the apparent carnal nature of its language (for non-LDS readers, the LDS edition fo the KJV includes but one footnote, stating that in Joseph Smith’s “Translation” has a note stating that the book is not inspired scripture. So, Mormon’s tend to disregard it merely as erotic poetry that slipped in.) Call Song of Songs God’s dirty mind test.
This thing I never would have supposed, but that particular time I understood all of it-- without trying to – as a metaphor for the relationship of Christ and the Theotokos, and both of them with the covenant people. It may be the only spiritual emphasis of the sacred feminine in the Old Testament (the books of Esther, Ruth, and Judith offer a temporal representation). Who is this woman clothed with the Sun, as awesome as a marshalled army?(to paraphrase).
It should be noted that the KJV in particular had to downplay any propheticor mystical references to the Mother of Our Lord, as Queen Elizabeth had cast herself in the role of sacred Christian feminine for the survival of Anglicanism. It takes a lot of humility to sit before what we know appears to be a thin cracker set in a piece of glass and acknowledge that it really is the literal physical presence of God.
Understanding of the book this way cannot come while considering God as a physical being, or the Trinity as separate and distinct beings. A stepping stone to recognizing the message of the Song of Songs is recognizing that while Hosea may have written about his own wife, God never intended the message to be that literal either.
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ParkerD
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Peter John,
Rather than reply using your other quote about the “Eucharist” and the Book of Mormon, I’ll use this but discuss that. The Savior was very clear, as was Moroni in discussing what the followers of Christ did. They did it to “witness unto the Father that ye are willing to do that which I have commanded you” (3 Nephi 18:10), do it “in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you” (v. 11) Also Moroni 4 and 5 and 6:6 have the same meanings as the Savior gave.
“More or less than these” would be fulfilled in any meaning (however great or considered marvelous) other than “remembrance” and “witnessing unto the Father”.
So it is again a clear case of being allowed to make a free will choice, but the scriptural meaning was clear and unmistakable and the purpose was and is to have “my Spirit to be with you”, always, so that His sanctifying influence and Christ’s grace can abound and bring toward perfection in Christ.
K
KathleenGee
Guest
Jesus was addressing His apostles when He said, ’ Do this in memory of Me…’
From the prior daily sacrifice in the Jewish temple remembering the ancient Passover in Egypt…freedom from slavery through protection from the blood of a lamb…to the memorial of Christ as the new form of worship, the fulfillment of all worship, the Mass the memorial of His Pasch, to bring us into communion with God, self, and each other, and freedom in Christ…the new inner life, the Pearl of Great Price.
From the prior daily sacrifice in the Jewish temple remembering the ancient Passover in Egypt…freedom from slavery through protection from the blood of a lamb…to the memorial of Christ as the new form of worship, the fulfillment of all worship, the Mass the memorial of His Pasch, to bring us into communion with God, self, and each other, and freedom in Christ…the new inner life, the Pearl of Great Price.
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Peter_John
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Your interpretation cherry picks the way it is written, and I will show the evidence of this in the very references you just used.
Third Nephi does not condemn who says more or less than what was said, but who does more or less than what was instructed and shown. That includes the substance used, instructions of who could do it, as well as the words spoken. Third Nephi proposes Christ instituting the Eucharist, instructing who they should have administer it but not dictating the prayers.
The prayers in Moroni are clearly an adaptation of the words ascibed to Christ in the account of its institution. Third Nephi reports him assigning the authority, instituted the sacrament, and left it to those assigned to compose the ritual. As the the prayers are recorded recorded purportedly about 400 years after Christ’s manifestation, the words so closely follow the account of what Jesus said, and it still includes bread and wine-- it indicates a deication to not altering anything presented-performed “according to the commandments of Jesus.”
That’s exaclty how the Eucharistic prayer used for the last 2,000 years was developed after the account of Christ’s actual institution of it before His Passion. He demonstrated it to them, told them to use bread and wine in remembrance of Him. He declared them once blessed his literal body and blood, without equivocation. He specified it should be bread and wine. The prayer adapted esentially recounts the original events, and in the Bible’s case the account was actually written long after the practice had been continued.
As far as the Book of Mormon approach to it, nothing in the prayer in Moroni diminishes the fulness of thepurported administration in 3 Nephi. That includes the use of bread and wine, the transubstantiation, and the liomitation on who can perform it. Moroni says “elders and priests” but does not say to how many congregations that plurality applies.
My point is that the two accounts differ significantly. 1) Since the Book of Mormon condemns any different way of administering the Eucharist, if the Book of Mormon is a true account, the Biblical patterned administration cannot be a sacrament at all. 2) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not follow it as instituted in the Book of Mormon account. It substitutes water for wine, considers it just a symbol, and allows most any adult male to in the congregation to administer it. These all augment or diminish the practice as described in both Moroni and Third Nephi.
Therefore, if the Book of Mormon is true, there is no valid Eucharist/Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper on Earth today. In addition, the Book of Mormon account bears no association with the Paschal Feast of Passover, which renders it spurious arbitrary as a practice, and contrary to LDS use of the Bible, the Biblical account is invalid.
Both accounts cannot be simultaneously valid. Accepting the Book of Mormon account severs the sacrament from its Hebraic roots in the Passover and its inherent institution as part of the Passion of Our Lord (in the Biblical account the Last Supper is not complete until Jesus sips the hardened wine (vinegar) while on the Cross.
That’s the best I can explain it here. it just represents numerous internal inconsistencies within Mormonism, and greater Catholicity of the Book of Mormon buried between those inconsistencies. It demonstrates to readers for what they should look even as it the Institution promoting it directs people away, and as accepting the book itself associates subtle hersies with what truth it does contain. McConkie convincing several LDS generations that the Catholic Church is the Book of Mormon’s Church of the Devil did not help much.
The point that the Biblical account makes is that when Jesus says he is with us always, even iunto the end of the age, it is not figurative. He is physically with us in the Eucharist, and even the Book of Mormon says that teaching more or less than it being his body and blood is heresy. While the Book of Mormon and biblical accounts of the Book of Mormon cannot both be valid, considering it merely symbolic denies them both.
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ParkerD
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Peter John,
Such a post as the one preceding this comment makes me all the more grateful for the certain knowledge provided by the Holy Ghost to individual people such as myself, and to leaders such as the Prophet Joseph Smith, just as the Savior said would happen.
It also makes me tremendously grateful that in His wisdom, the Lord included in the plan of salvation the need for continuing revelation to guide both the leaders and the members in the stewardships that involve their own sphere of action and decision-making, and included stumbling blocks that would test whether an individual was familiar with this in their own life such that they could understand the principle as they see it applied in real life situations, including the change from using bread and wine to using bread and water which the Holy Ghost inspired because the Lord wanted the change to be implemented.
The Book of Mormon confirms that continuing revelation would indeed be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth, which is a benefit for mankind but a stumbling block for some and that is absolutely as it should be. The word of the Lord is a two-edged sword, penetrating to find the motives and intents and “heart” of the reader and hearer.
Such a post as the one preceding this comment makes me all the more grateful for the certain knowledge provided by the Holy Ghost to individual people such as myself, and to leaders such as the Prophet Joseph Smith, just as the Savior said would happen.
It also makes me tremendously grateful that in His wisdom, the Lord included in the plan of salvation the need for continuing revelation to guide both the leaders and the members in the stewardships that involve their own sphere of action and decision-making, and included stumbling blocks that would test whether an individual was familiar with this in their own life such that they could understand the principle as they see it applied in real life situations, including the change from using bread and wine to using bread and water which the Holy Ghost inspired because the Lord wanted the change to be implemented.
The Book of Mormon confirms that continuing revelation would indeed be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth, which is a benefit for mankind but a stumbling block for some and that is absolutely as it should be. The word of the Lord is a two-edged sword, penetrating to find the motives and intents and “heart” of the reader and hearer.
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Peter_John
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The ironic thing is that it makes me grateful that the Apostolic succession to the Bishops is so historicaly obvious, that continuing revelation has guided Christianity without interruption since New Testament times (despite Book of Mormon assumptions to the contrary), and that the plain and precious parts removed from the Bible after the gentiles received it from the Jews are still available.
If in the end all that matters is what some living man decrees, it seems pointless to study scripture in the first place.
Our perception of the Eucharist limits how well Christ can actualizein our own lives and beings.If we do not recognize the real presence of Christ in the Body and Blood we take in communion, we cannot recognize that he literally never left us. I do want to clarify that I do not think it can limit the personal meaning of the ordinance/sacrament to the one receiving it.
In fact I believe that the Lord justifies one partaking of a substitute prison food (bread and water) as a mere symbol with true intent over one partaking of the literal flesh and blood lacking sincerity. A proper attitude can change a person partaking of a symbol more than the real food can change a person with the wrong attitude – but the real food can change someone sicnerely partaking in ways the attitude alone never can.
Lacking a perception of the real presence limits the literal change it can make in a person, and that is what Jesus said would save. He said we need to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood – and the Book of Mormon echoes that.
No prophet ancient or modern can alter the decrees of Christ. In looking at what prophets said before Christ or what Apostles said after, we must base the interpretation in light of those words we know Christ said. If a prophet can disregard the words of Christ, Christ must be a lesser prophet.
I suppose it should not surprise me. If Jesus’s words in the Bible can be disregarded because a reputed modern prophet says so, it should not surprise me as a Catholic that His purported proclamations in the Book of Mormon can likewise be set aside. However, as a Mormon that seemed unthinkable to me: what part of “most correct book, and the keystone of our religion” did I misunderstand?
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ParkerD
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Peter John,
I find that having awakened from a dream and now being unable to get back to sleep, that I have the time so here goes a brief response:
Jesus was a tremendous example of being able to study the scriptures and get their real meaning without being burdened by the misinterpretations of the men around him–the Pharisees, Sadducees, scholars, and Sanhedrin. He also showed the need to seek the Spirit in reading and studying as did Paul and Peter, and showed that following a living teacher of the gospel who brought new truths to the world was not a bad thing.
Christ taught truths that lead to becoming perfect if they are applied in one’s life and are included by repentance, forgiveness, and seeking sanctification through being born of water and of the Spirit and denying oneself of all ungodliness. Some of His teachings used symbolism to have the teaching touch the heart of the listener, but sometimes the symbolism can be misunderstood, which is a given whenever symbolism is used, and He knew that would be the case. It is a case of His having given free will choice and having allowed the hearer to find truths or not, just as He spoke in parables and let people either understand or not, depending on their own heart.
Christ is not a “lesser prophet”, as you well know.
In answer to your final question: The part that emphasized personal, genuine, heartfelt prayer whether in a closet or in the field, and that the words of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Ghost will tell one “all things that ye should do”, and the part that emphasized that partaking of communion is for remembrance of Him and for seeking to have His Spirit to be with them.
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catholic-rcia
Guest
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Luke 4:16-21
Dear Parker
Here is an example of how the Holy Spirit works in a practicing Catholic regarding Jesus / Eucharist. I would not normally place something like this foreword as it might seem like boasting or complete stupidity. But none the less willing to take the chance.
I was looking to hire a laborer three weeks ago. It amazed me at the type of people who applied… lots of hurting people out there. One a clean cut school teacher who had been laid off, others with experience, some forefront in my mind. As usual I prayed to God for discernment. I would surrender to His will in this process.
Then a 30 year old man called and I had him come to the jobsite to fill out an application like all the rest. When I met him I was hit with about 3 red flags immediately. His appearance was about everything I would not want as far as interacting with my customers. I immediately judged him (who I am a sinner) and began the process of elimination.
Open to prayer the Holy Spirit / God told me to hire him now. Hesitantly I gave him the job and he is now one of my best workers.
Because I believe in the Most Holy Trinity I know that it was not my heart that hired him rather the Heart of Christ. I am nothing but a loser in this life who tags along with the winner of this life. It is good to see Gods work, to be open to it even when it hurts. During this process of discernment I asked God, “what about my customers, being in their homes, the tattoos, the long goatee, should I ask him to shave it, to hide the tattoos? He answered pretty much “no, keep moving foreword, stop thinking to much”
This guy is so happy to have a job as he has been looking for one for two years right here in Northern Utah through work force service. When His counselor asked me what I thought of him all I could say was what do you think of him? I saw so much of myself in that question, like looking into a mirror, yet I left that person behind, did not want to go there.
His story is like a lot of others. Father left when he was young, pretty poor all of his life, no education, rebellious, the black sheep of the family, drugs and alcohol at an early age, married with a two year old daughter, trying to straighten out his life for her.
This guy is so welcome in my life words can not express how I feel to be in his presence. He has been given a chance to excel keeping in mind that it has nothing to do with me or my business as we are both together equally along for the ride. So when I get the look from my customers as I enter under their roof with my new worker… all of his tattoos… I look to Jesus with a smile on His face as he tells me I have to love them as well. And I do!
Parker, this is a bit of my daily journey with my Lord and God.
What spirit did I receive when I was baptized?
As to my customers and my appearance that is so important to me regarding my business, to just through that out the window, maybe you could say a spirit of contention. But don’t blame me, blame Jesus.
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seeking_light
Guest
just questioning point 2 . the profets have baptised at variouce points in the old testiment so why is the idea that it was happening 600 years before jesus so heretical? baptism was an established act of repentance by the time jesus was baptised jesus never established baptism what he did was change it from a sybolic gesture into a full blown sacrament.
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RebeccaJ
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Mormons view that baptism has always been an ordinance, from the time of Adam and Eve. This is in their scriptures. They view Jesus’ baptism as no different than their own.
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catholic-rcia
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Dear Parker
In your writings above I see a bridge to no where. Jesus did not have to seek the Spirit of God, He is the spirit of God. As a man he allowed the Spirit to control every aspect of His life in perfect harmony. As God Jesus has no reason to do this other than as an example to us. He is more than just an example, he is it. He being our Creator, the Creator of all things, nothing that is was creeted by another. Even satan was created by and through Jesus.
Jesus did not study the Scriptures (Old Testement) as you and I, Paul or Peter, as this was His life. Jesus’ entire life was proclaimed by the prophets of old, guided by the will of the Father. When Jesus spoke the Father spoke ., Jesus never seeked equality With the Father, rather he emptied Himself taking on the form of the perfect slave. The perfect slave who as a man entered this life into perfect freedom, and even died in perfect freedom. Freedom from the world as we know it. The scriptures are about Him, His life, His mission, His teachings, His Passion, His death, His resurrection. We are baptized into Him in order to live in Him, to die in Him, to be risen in and through Him. To be with Him forever.
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PaulDupre
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That’s what I was taught in the 1970’s as well. It was the prevailing belief among Mormons back then.
In fact, a number of TBMs on these fora have said that they accept and believe this teaching and see nothing wrong with it.
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Mark_David
Guest
It’s actually tritheism in Mormon teaching, plain and simple: Three essences that share the same will. Jesus and Satan are also considered brothers. I was once married to a Mormon, so I know that they do (or at least did, in some cases) teach many far-out things contrary to both Catholic and Protestant theologies. Personally, I consider Mormonism as well-crossing the boundaries of being a “Christian” religion, far beyond SDA or several other splinter groups.
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TheExorcist
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That’s true. Whenever I need to research what is currently taught I usually try to go to as primary a source as possible. When I read your post I decided to go to the Gospel Principles manual and just being lazy I Googled it. What I got was a link to the old GP manual which actually states Satan and Christ are our brothers. Then I checked two of the newer ones I have and they actually took that part out. Weird!
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RebeccaJ
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SteveVH
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Rich, you hit the nail on the head. It speaks volumes of Mormon understanding of the nature and identity of Jesus Christ. Christ IS the Word. To think that He would have to ask the Spirit to help Him understand the Scriptures is completely missing the boat. It is the rejection of the Holy Trinity that is at the heart of this fallacy; a non-understanding of the true “oneness” of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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ParkerD
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SteveVH,
I suppose that I might as well clarify two points:
- When I wrote “He also showed the need to seek the Spirit in reading and studying as did Peter and Paul”, then one could assume I meant He “needed” to seek the Spirit, or one could understand that there was a meaning within the use of the word “showed” that meant “showed us”. In other words, He showed us that we need to seek the Spirit in reading and studying.
- Evidently from both of your posts, I gather that there has been somewhat of a blurring of the following very clear passages that show Jesus did indeed have the influence–by being “full of the Holy Ghost” or “of the power of the Spirit”, of the Holy Ghost:
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zaffiroborant
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Not in the least bit weird, it is simply a continuation of the LDS churches “mainstreaming”. They hide any “doctrine” that is bizarre to your everyday “Christian” on the street. So they take out Jesus and Satan are brothers, that the exhalted with have spirit children who will worship them as we do God, and so on. It is a marketing strategy, a furthering of Hinckley’s “I don’t know that we teach that”. In short deception.
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Mark_David
Guest
But then that’s a given regarding the fabric of esoteric religions. Look at Scientology. It’s all about “milk before meat”… because the meat is bad. By the time you get to the stuff, though, you’ve been thoroughly brainwashed, or feel that it’s too late to turn back. Or (hopefully) break down and run away screaming. Catholicism, on the other hand, is exoteric; there’s nothing to hide, because God’s truth is wonderful and accessible (indeed, essential) for all people.
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