This has been a little bit of a pet peeve of mine for a few years. Have you ever seen this happen? It happens a few times a year at my last ward.
A priest adds an extra particle, an “a” or a “the” and he has to redo the whole prayer. He doesn’t even know he’s adding it until another priest or the bishopric points it out and he finally gets the prayer right on the forth time.
Then comes the water prayer and they let an autistic young man say the prayer. The entire prayer is unintelligible except for “Amen”. And the bishop says nothing.
Now I am by no means suggesting that the autistic kid be given the same treatment as the guy who did the first prayer, but how about some consistency? If every word is literally needed for the prayer to take effect then why is he allowed to even attempt it? If every word is not needed then why pick on the first guy? What’s the big deal about an extra particle that doesn’t change the meaning?
A few years ago it was very uncomfortable. An African-American priest kept pronouncing the word “ask” as “axe” and they made him do the prayer over, but didn’t tell him what he was doing wrong. The bishopric left another priest, a white kid, in the uncomfortable position of having to tell his friend that he had to pronounce it as “ask” and not “axe”. I was TBM at the time and just wanted to just crawl under the pew.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,115520,115520#msg-115520

The real issue is that power hungry priestood leaders created this "the sacrament prayer must be spoken perfectly" because they wanted attention from the pulpit by correcting others and demonstrating their superiority and priestood authority. Its a dominance issue and totally unnecessary. Not all priestood leaders are asshats and some are reasonable, but there's always one or two on a power trip or totally caught up in their holiness and it gives them great pleasure to "correct" someone flubbing the sacrament prayer. I always felt it diminished the man making the corrections or vigorously shaking his head no that the prayer wasn't "good enough." Ridiculous.
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,115520,115701#msg-115701

+1

I think the most I ever saw it enforced was five times in a row. I guess for the obviously handicapped, they figure God will accept it, or at least not prevent blessings for anyone because of it. The funniest was when this one boy decided that he had memorized the prayers. He made sure to let everyone know, and then goofed it twice before giving in and reading it instead.

Somewhat unrelated, but I remember half the boys snickering every time they said, "... that they may DO IT, in rememberence..." during the prayer. I always made sure to not pause there, hah.

Yep, seen that too. And the thing is that the more unconfortable it becomes for the guy doing the prayer the more difficulties he has in continuing.

Our last bishop really disliked our whole family and constantly found ways to make our kid's lives difficult. Not enough of a man to come out with it, he just picked away at them.

One Sunday when my son was blessing the sacrament, he discovered that the bishop had taken away the little card with the prayer on it. Just the one that my son would be using. Luckily my son did fine, much to Bishop Bastard's dismay.

He did us all a great favour. It was his appalling behaviour made me look at all the other stuff on my shelf and realise TSCC was a scam. Within 6 months of me telling my OH my conclusions we all stopped attending.

Now we are officially out.

A tangent here, i know, but that sacrament prayer stunt was one of my hmmmmm moments.

When I was a deacon, my older brother was a priest blessing the sacrament.

He would consistently say "O God..." at the beginning of the prayer with the EXACT same inflection as if he were surprised and disgusted with something. He would even put a little pause after it so it sounded like he was cussing. He sounded like he could have been saying...

"Oh god.......... Who farted?"

Every time, all the deacons would bust out in poorly suppressed laughter. But no one ever said a thing to him.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2011 12:54PM by redkoolaidmonster.

Talk About passive aggressive! that guy had it down.

When I was a kid, I remember watching a new priest struggle to say the prayer. The bishop just kept shaking his head every time he finished. He didn't tell him WHAT he was doing wrong; he'd just make him say it again. The kid literally said the prayer 11 times, still couldn't get it right, and was told to trade places with the kid in the middle who said the prayer for him. I've never felt so bad for someone in my entire life. The poor kid's face was beet red. Talk about humiliating.

Meanwhile, my bitch of an abusive TBM mother took that as her opportunity to force my soon-to-be-a-priest brother to memorize and recite the prayer multiple times to ensure that she wouldn't be embarrassed like that kid's mother must surely have been. Nice.

A priest in our ward, in front of a huge crowd at a missionary farewell, messed up on the sacrament prayer. He looked up at the bishop who was shaking his head. The priest, directly in the mike and frustrated said "oh shit!!" We all got quite a good laugh over that one.

The little pull out mic is more sensitive than many of the priests realize. I've had to suppress laughter when whispers of the priests can be heard. We've had a few "Damn" and the occasional "fuck" said plainly into the mic when the prayers had to be redone.

as usual

If I ever had to relive it, heaven help me!!!, I would pre-record it and lip sink it for perfection! Just sayin (smile)

'They' (those in the Command Pod) could make a card for the pews to explain the significance of sac. for visitors, including the words... for hearing impaired AND for flubs.

I guess it just isn't that important...

growing up we had a kid that had to repeat it for the third time..

he knelt down to doit .. then got up looked at the Bishop and

walked out never to be seen again.

lucky bastard

In the ward we attend, a few months ago, one of the kids was blessing the bread. The only catch is that this kid stutters. The bish made him repeat it four times. 4 friggin times!! He was stuttering the entire time and everyone was getting uncomfortable. I was felt bad for the kid. That was uncalled for.

It has a long history in English and is an older English form that appeared in Beowulf and Chaucer.

http://staefcraeft.blogspot.com/2009/10/beowulf-axes-questions.html

Certain "southernisms" of American English, such as the "axe" pronunciation are actually echoes of older forms of English.

So the Bishopric jerk who made the African-American priest repeat the prayer on account of the "axe" pronunciation was just displaying his own ignorance. It is scary when ignernt people get a little authority and then turn into Super Pharisee.

"Who was that masked man who just whisked by and damned us all to hell for 1,000 trivial infractions of rigid rules that he pulled out of his ass? Why, that was none other than Super Pharisee! [cue trumpet fanfare]"

How can anyone get hung up on the EXACT words in a prayer???

It's not the words but the F E E L I N G S and thought in the prayer....you know the feelings that TBMs rely on so much.....

Wait. I'm confused. I thought Mormons didn't like repeated prayers like how the Catholics do it. Also, the Lord's Prayer isn't that popular. Please explain.

There are 3 types of prayers in mormondumb:
1. Regular prayers (food prayers, invocations and benedictions, personal prayers etc.) that are meant to be said straight from the heart with out being repetitive following only a basic form (Dear HF, We thank thee for..., We ask thee..., In the name of JC, Amen)

2. ORDINANCE PRAYERS (sacrament, baptism, and sealing) that HAVE to be said word for word--because for some reason it's not a "valid" ordinance unless it's said EXACTLY right by someone with the "right" authority. That is supposedly supposed to make the more powerful or more distinct than your average run-of the-mill prayer.

3. Priesthood Blessings (giving the gift of the holy ghost, name and a blessing for a baby, blessing the sick) that have certain things that have to be included in the beginning (the being-blessed person's name, what priesthood you are using, why they are being blessed, etc.) and then the rest is a prayer from the heart.

I know, right? And you're expected to do it right each time or else you get the evil eye...

It's just like magical incantations: you have to say the words EXACTLY right, or the magic doesn't work. (Which is the loophole that magicians use when the magic doesn't work: "I must have made a mistake when casting the spell!")

Just one other piece of evidence that the "ordinances" are phony, and based on Smith's involvement with magical incantations. (See Michael Quinn's book "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View"

Nobody seems to notice that the words for baptism are different in the D&C and the BoM:

* BoM 3 Nephi 11:24-25 says that Jesus commanded as follows:

"And now behold, these are the words which ye shall say, calling them by name, saying:
Having authority given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

BUT:

* D&C 20:73 says that the words should be:

"[The baptizer] shall say, calling him or her by name: Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Notice: The words "Having been commissioned" are different from "Having authority given me"

BUT:

* When Alma baptized Helam (BoM Mosiah 18:11-14) he said:

"Helam, I baptize thee, having authority from the Almighty God, as a testimony that ye have entered into a covenant to serve him until you are dead as to the mortal body; and may the Spirit of the Lord be poured out upon you; and may he grant unto you eternal life, through the redemption of Christ, whom he has prepared from the foundation of the world."

Should we conclude that Helam's baptism was not valid?

The Church Handbook of Instructions (p. 36, 2006 edition) says: "The baptism must be repeated if the words are not spoken exactly as given in Doctrine and Covenants 20:73," implying that otherwise the baptism is not valid. It would seem that either the BoM baptisms were not valid, or the modern church has changed the ordinance (which they say was established at the beginning of the world - and the true church does not change sacred ordinances).

It seems that the whole point really is just to underscore the hierarchical authority of the organization by making the ordinary members afraid to take any initiative or make any innovation that doesn't follow a prescribed formula passed down to them through the official chain of command.

It's like the creepy self-slaughter gestures they made people do in the temple prior to 1990. Now, the implication is that those bloody-minded disembowelment and throat slitting "penalty" gestures were never an essential or required part of the endowment ordinance. But who can doubt that they would have thrown you out IF PRIOR TO 1990, you just sat down during that part and refused to act out the gestures. There is no question that they would have told you that every element of the ceremony had to be performed for the ordinance to be valid. That's what "Simon" said up until 1990. From 1990 on, "Simon says" that if you do stand up and do the bloody self-slaughter penalty gestures, you'll be doing it wrong.

I really can't understand how my adult TBM relatives can still take this Church and its leaders seriously. It's a true mystery.

It's stupid. Stuuuuupid.

What if you pray in a non-inspired language (like Hebrew! or, in my case, Swedish!)? Yeah, is the sacrament not valid then, eh?

My their own logic it would seem so. English is the new liturgical Latin or what? :P