Why Is Mormonism Appearing So Much?

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Pug:
In my neck of the woods, calling a lady “high maintenance” is an insult.
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Sorry.
The Mormon church has extensive programs to look after its members. You get “called” and have to go help out with a need your Mormon neighbor has. The Catholic Church does not have an equivalent program, that’s the plain truth.
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Is it really charity when you are forced to serve in a “program”? The immediate results may be okay, but I fear that people forget how to do the right things for the right reasons.

Sure we don’t have the same kind of coercive programs, but in my parish there is a lot of volunteerism and real person-to-person helping from the heart. At this year’s Thanksgiving Lunch for the Poor, there were more volunteers than guests!

When I was LDS, I was burdened with so many callings (given by revelation of course so they could not be refused) that I had no time for my family, and my health suffered greatly. The bishop told my then-wife “Give him up now so you can have him in eternity.” What she answered cannot be repeated in polite society. :eek:

God bless you,
Paul
 
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tkdnick:
I can tell everyone here that when I miss even one Sunday, people are asking the rest of my family where I’m at. And when I’m there and someone else from my family is missing, I get asked where they are.

I kinda get the feeling that the parish that BJ and her husband attend is not the greatest parish.
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I assume (I hope) you are talking about what goes on outside of Mass.

Each local Church’s primary function – and the end to which her focus and energy is directed – is to offer the Sacraments – God’s gifts to the Church, and through the Church to us, to help us get to heaven.

The focus of our attention at Mass should be on worship. It is vertical – we worship God, and God feeds us Himself in the Holy Eucharist. The Mass is a re-presentation of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. The New Covenant in Christ’s Blood (Luke 22:20) is renewed and sealed by the Eucharist.

Our focus should not be horizontal (socializing). Socializing should be done outside of Mass, in the vestibule or parish hall, in the parking lot, at study groups, at classes, and other parish activities. When Christ is truly present – as He is in the tabernacle of all Catholic Churches – that’s where our focus should be. If our attention is on who else is at Mass, it distracts us from God. If Christ were present in person, would we be looking elsewhere, chit-chatting? Well, He is Really Present. “When I caught sight of him, I fell down at his feet as though dead” Rev 1:17.

There are Masses offered at my parish at 7:30, 9:00, and 11 a.m., and at 1:00 (Latin Tridentine Mass) and 5:30 p.m. How would anyone know when another is missing? They may have just attended a different Mass! The Church is large and holds hundreds of people. I don’t see everyone who attends.

We don’t go to Mass to sing; though singing is fine, but it’s really irrelevant. We go to Church to offer with the priest the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We are kneeling at the foot of the cross – at Calvary. There was no singing at Calvary – and no guitars.

JMJ Jay
 
Well said, Jay!

That’s why I really prefer daily mass to Sunday mass - there is no music. It is so solemn and reverent - I really love it.
Paul
 
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Skyron:
In some ways I feel that God had me experience the good ways of other churches in hopes that I’d bring those attitudes/ideas/bonding back to the Catholic Church, and help it grow in that area.

My two cents…
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God: I want you to leave my True Church, which I founded for the salvation of the world. Go join a man-made church so that you can learn how things ought to be done. Then – just in case you ever decide to come back – you can teach my True Church the error of its ways. Of course, I could teach her how extremely important socializing is myself, if I really thought it was essential, but I’d rather have you do it.

Protestants socialize, pray a little (very little), listen to a sermon, and sing a song or two. Catholics worship – Tantum ergo, sacramentum, veneremur cernui . . .

My two cents . . .

🙂 Jay
Ex-Southern Baptist, ex-agnostic, ex-atheist
 
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PaulDupre:
When I was LDS, I was burdened with so many callings (given by revelation of course so they could not be refused)
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My Mormon relative has found the “calling” thing difficult, that’s why I know about it. Indeed, it seems to take away from the spouse if you are a popular one to get called all the time. Some refuse the call (or something), and so the reliable ones get called more. Not being a Mormon, I’m not sure how it feels to the average Mormon.

We do have great volunteer programs, like the society of St Vincent de Paul. I didn’t mean to imply the LDS program is the best, just that indeed we don’t have one like it.

Daily mass is an awesome place to go. I survived some tough times by going every day I could. It has a whole feel to it, very focusing on God.
 
One fact that everyone in this discussion has missed is the small size of Mormon wards, when they reach a certain size (say 250 or so they are automatically divided. And due to their non-clerical lay set up every “worthy” adult male is ordained to the mormon “priesthood” or eldership. They are very organised and efficient, everyone has his own priesthood calling.

Catholic parishes are very different. Most parishes have at least 1,000 families not individual members, and usually at most two priests and often none.

So of course the Mormons are going to keep better track of their members, the numbers alone should make this obvious.

In a Catholic parish the numbers alone are enough to keep you from knowing many of your fellow parishoners. Because their is usually another Mass starting in 15 or 30 minutes people tend to get in and get out quickly.
 
When you go to Mass you go for Christ as part of the Body of Christ. To be with Christ, with Mary and all the Saints at the foot of the Cross. The Church I go to in Utah is very special to us. It really is not a social event in the worldly sense. It is much, much more than that. If you do not feel like talking to your friends you really do not have to. You can just leave and no one will feel one way or another about it. If they do they check it in and then leave it behind. Sometimes you’re happy, and sometimes your not. But you still go to Mass as yourself and leave as yourself. Who is there to impress really? We are all fallen. We see this fact eye to eye, heart to heart. The best times at Mass for me is when I realize its vastness. That what Christ did once for me is happening now, in the hear and now. That is so awesome. I realize my sin of today, I know that he felt them and that his one death for me is an ongoing thing in my life. To heal me so that one day I can be in the presence of God face to face. . The bond to the Cross has not time as we know it. It moves on and on. The one thing that I get out of the Eucharist that can make us all leap for joy is that God loves us just as we are now, and he will always love us just as we will be tomorrow. The only progression that really matters to a Catholic is the procession that Christ took on for each of us. There is no way around the suffering Christ and His Cross for us. It is where hope is found, peace is found. Only Christ can impress His Father forever. But we get to tag along with Him. What a Gift!!!
 
Thank you all so much for the great discussion, I learned a lot and gained an understanding of the differences that I probably knew, but had not really thought about before. Divine Savior is very close and I have a friend who goes there, so maybe we will try that. I thought and my husband thought that we had to stay in the parish where we live. He does all his donations there and is on the roles, as a member of that parish.
I do understand the size difference and the fact that there are many different masses to attend and not everyone attends the same one every week, some even go on Saturday night, so it makes it very difficult to make friends. The Mormon wards split every time they reach about 500 families, so it makes it much easier to get to know people. I have a lot of friends in and out of the church, but my husband just came to the US in 1999, so my friends are the only friends he has and I just thought if he had some friends in his own faith it would help him.
I do not think I am very high maintenance, I just did not know how to build wheelchair ramps and since I was spending all my time at least 10 hours a day at the hospital for 3 months, the elders in my church saw the need and helped me. I did not ask for help and I offered to pay.
I can see how you(Paul) felt about callings in the church, when I was young and had 6 little children, it was sometimes very difficult to balance everything, but now when I am older, I can see what it added to my life and what I learned from serving in the church. I also have learned to say no and not feel guilty about it.
I think my husband will like Divine Savior better, we went there when they were still in the tent, and he was just back from living in Naples, Italy for 15 years. We happened to attend a young persons mass and they were rockin out. It shocked him as he was so used to the sedate, dignified masses of Italy. So I took him to the other parish which is in our neighborhood and he liked it better,and he doesn’t care about the singing(it’s me that likes to sing) but the priest we liked is gone and they have changed several times in the past 6 years.
I have to say the priest in the hospital was quite good, and I wheeled my husband to mass in the hospital chapel every Sunday. It was Catholic hospital, so maybe I was being unfair when I thought the priest from his parish would take more interest, but then how would he know? I guess I just didn’t understand how the Catholic Church worked with the prayer role and all. If I ever have to go through anything similar again I will know how it works.
Well, it was really a nice chat with all of you and I appreciate the help you offered.
Oh and Katholikos about being less educated than Joseph Smith on the LDS church, scripture and all . I feel I am when I hear all the things you have brought out about what the Mormons believe that I have never heard before, it just boggles my mind that I have never been taught those things in all the years I have gone to church. I’m certainly glad I never heard some of the things Paul DuPre wrote.
 
Well like I said, I’m a little biased about Divine Savior, and especially the 11:30 Mass…seeing as how I am one of the band leaders for that Mass. We have a mix of the total rock-out and traditional hymms. I think it works out really well.
 
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Exporter:
I have noticed that is the past three weeks threads about Mormanism and Mormon Theology have been appearing frequently. I have begun to wonder why. Several posters say they are Mormans, yet they disagree with one another. Why has this happened?
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Many of these are actually rather ‘older’ threads which got ‘resurrected’. But my sense is that there are some Catholics with real questions about Mormonism (they’re dating a Mormon or are married to one or something like that and need some info). In some cases, once one thread pops up, someone thinks of something they’re curious about and starts a new thread. I DON’T have the impression that Mormons are orchestrating these threads: they don’t seem to be initiated by LDS and the threads go on for several posts before a professedly-Mormon person makes a post. Mostly I think this is just the turn of the dice–come back in a few weeks and perhaps the board will be dominated by threads about Southern Baptists or Scientologists or something else.
 
Mitt Romney is in the Presidential race and has stirred up the media pot is my thought on why?? He is question by everyone and it has caused a entire nation to become curious of what does Mormon mean to me??
 
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