Holy Week- Do Mormons celebrate/observe it or not?

[bluebell]

18 hours ago, Notatbm said:

Celebrating Palm Sunday is a tradition.. one Mormons never celebrated

Palm Sunday is biblical though. 

[bluebell]

14 hours ago, Notatbm said:

You can always quit reading and responding to my posts if they upset you. As far as the honest or dishonest claim goes. Just because I don’t factor in every nuance doesn’t make a statement a lie. You need to make better efforts to prove me a liar instead of calling me that for not broadcasting every nuance. Nuance can go on ad infinitum. 
 

prove me a liar and I’ll concede it to you and I believe we have engaged in that manner in the past. Just know any statement that I have ever made here and was then asked for a cfr I have provided it.  True I can misunderstand things and after discussion in some  instances I have corrected or retracted my statement (s), but I do not knowingly lie in my posts. 
 

that said if you consider yourself a true Christian you best refrain from throwing out accusations of lies when out of all the times I have been accused of that on this board I do not recall a single instance where the accuser has been correct. I am open to correction in that assertion, but I believe every single instance of being accused of lying it was not true.

I cannot say the same of some other posters here.  Have called out a few for lying about statements I have made and in many instances do not reply or defend their statement. Some continue to do it without proving their position after being asked to. 
 

I’m pretty sure if I was repeatedly posting false material, making false statements and outright lying I would have been banned by now. 
 

You and I, and everybody else who has read your posts, know that you are not open to correction.  

[Notatbm]

33 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Palm Sunday is biblical though. 

That does not mean Mormons celebrate it. We never have until these last couple years and the lame attempts at doing so. I’m not denying it is biblical. The church’s own statement says Mormons do not observe Holy Week. Palm Sunday is part of Holy Week.  
 

“Latter-day Saints conduct Easter Sunday services but do not follow the religious observances of Ash Wednesday, Lent, or Holy Week. ”

[Notatbm]

35 minutes ago, bluebell said:

You and I, and everybody else who has read your posts, know that you are not open to correction.  

Are you saying I have not EVER admitted I have made an incorrect statement here? 

[bluebell]

52 minutes ago, Notatbm said:

That does not mean Mormons celebrate it. We never have until these last couple years and the lame attempts at doing so. I’m not denying it is biblical. The church’s own statement says Mormons do not observe Holy Week. Palm Sunday is part of Holy Week.  
 

“Latter-day Saints conduct Easter Sunday services but do not follow the religious observances of Ash Wednesday, Lent, or Holy Week. ”

Easter is also a part of Holy Week, and we've always celebrated Easter, right?  Just because something shares the same time frame of Holy Week doesn't mean we are celebrating Holy Week.  

Holy Week is a very specific religious observance.  It's the last week of Lent and has specific events celebrated throughout the week on different days.  Holy Wednesday or Spy Wednesday marks the betrayal of Jesus, for example, and Holy Thursday or Maunday Thursday celebrates the last supper.  Holy Friday is also know as Good Friday and focuses on the Passion of Jesus. Holy Saturday focuses on His death and descent into Hell.  As the churches statement correctly conveys, we don't celebrate or have any religious observances that go throughout the week.

Could this be a case where you weren't exactly aware of what Holy Week was and conflated the observance of Palm Sunday and Easter with an observance of Holy Week?

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Notatbm said:

Are you saying I have not EVER admitted I have made an incorrect statement here? 

I haven't read all of your statements so would never make such a claim. 

But what I have read, you've never been very open to be corrected.  One example on this thread is where it was pointed out that Wilcox was never a general authority.  You downplayed the correction and made another argument about how it didn't really matter that you had gotten it wrong.  Finally, when the poster Jay asked "can you give me a link to the church's general authority's statement that everyone else is "playing" church?"  You provided a link to the Wilcox talk, which you knew was not a link to a GA's statement (because he's not a GA) without bothering to correct Jay's misunderstanding, illustrating that you don't really care about presenting correct information at all.

[Notatbm]

40 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Finally, when the poster Jay asked "can you give me a link to the church's general authority's statement that everyone else is "playing" church?"  You provided a link to the Wilcox talk, which you knew was not a link to a GA's statement (because he's not a GA) without bothering to correct Jay's misunderstanding, illustrating that you don't really care about presenting correct information at all.

If you re-read jays question to me he specifically quoted me and in that quote I make the correction about the GA/ GO thing after you ( I think it was you) corrected me. 

If he thinks brad is a ga after that then it’s on him. Whether it’s a ga or not, he wanted to watch the video so I sent him the link. Nothing in my response to him is dishonest. 
 

Try again…. Or go do the work and read through all my posts to make sure you are right. 

[Notatbm]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

You and I, and everybody else who has read your posts, know that you are not open to correction.  

Ok wait a minute… just a few pages back you corrected me and I acknowledged and corrected it…. Right??

Are you as open to correction as you say I should be?

“  On 3/7/2026 at 9:52 AM,  bluebell said:

That statement was made in 2022 during a church fireside … He also was not a general authority.  He was a counselor in the YM's general presidency.  A leader for sure, but not a GA.

Oh my bad… he was a “general officer” in a position of very high influence with the youth… esp juvenile male priesthood holders.”

 

[Notatbm]

On 3/7/2026 at 12:41 PM, bluebell said:

Exactly.  The embellishments and half truths that are are fond of throwing out there to try to make your points are your bad.  

Are you saying that I knew he was a general officer and lied and called him a general authority?

[Calm]

19 hours ago, Notatbm said:

I’m pretty sure if I was repeatedly posting false material, making false statements and outright lying I would have been banned by now. 
 

You are too entertaining…

IMO, what got people banned when lying about things was lack of civility, vulgarity, etc.  IOW, it was more how they did it than what they did. 

Edited March 10 by Calm

[Notatbm]

42 minutes ago, Calm said:

You are too entertaining…

IMO, what got people banned when lying about things was lack of civility, vulgarity, etc.  IOW, it was more how they did it than what they did. 

Since I now have your attention are you gonna clear this up? Or continue to let that outright lie just sit here?

 On 3/6/2026 at 5:27 PM,  Calm said:

 To say we don’t celebrate Easter is ignoring all the evidence we do, Imo

There is a relatively recent shift in language and emphasizing a Christ-centered Easter celebration in the last fifteen years or so and use of “Holy Week” is now showing up in conference though I found a Ensign article from 2009 using that term and a 1970s article talking about teaching about Christ for Easter rather than the Easter Bunny or thinking about new clothes (though we got Easter dresses as little girls in my family).

Expand  

1- cfr where I said we don’t celebrate Easter. That is a straight up lie. I never said that 

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Notatbm said:

Are you saying that I knew he was a general officer and lied and called him a general authority?

No, I don’t think you lied.  I also don’t think you really cared if it was true or not, and I think when you found out it wasn’t true that you downplayed the inaccuracy and pivoted to another angle (again, without really caring if it was true or not) to attempt to make the same case. 

[Tony uk]

On 3/6/2026 at 11:17 PM, Notatbm said:

I'm asking because it seems as if there is a shift towards adopting the traditions of the "whore of the World" Catholic church.

In the past few years we have started hearing about Palm Sunday and Holy Week at church where previously in my entire 50+ years in the church never heard either really mentioned or discussed other than to mock the false traditions of other apostate religions esp the Catholics. We definitely did not celebrate holy week as evidenced by the Mormon school teacher in Utah making a Catholic kid wash the ash wed cross off his forehead a few years ago. If we had, she would have known what it was. I grew up Mormon and until I got into the Army I had never seen anyone wearing the ash. I politely let someone know they had dirt on their forehead and got a real education at that moment.

"Joseph Smith claimed that he had seen both God the Father and Jesus Christ and asked these personages which church he should join. He claimed he was told to join none of them, “for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight” (Joseph Smith History 1:19)."

I checked church website and found conflicting info:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/easter?lang=eng

"Latter-day Saints conduct Easter Sunday services but do not follow the religious observances of Ash Wednesday, Lent, or Holy Week."

 

 

And then we are talking about this:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/easter/holy-week

 

So which is it? We do celebrate and recognize holy week or not? Seems as if the Church cannot figure out what the plan is.

Each new day is an opportunity to experience the joy and peace that are possible because of Him.

 

Grow Your Relationship with Jesus Christ during Holy Week

Each new day is an opportunity to experience the joy and peace that are possible because of Him.

Grow Your Relationship with Jesus Christ during Holy Week

Each new day is an opportunity to experience the joy and peace that are possible because of Him.

If the LDS is bringing to the attention of it's members the events leading up to Easter Sunday. Maybe it is just that, bringing to the attention the events, rather than giving them any individual significance within their own right. And just as a point of reference. The Catholic Church refers to Maundy Thursday/Good Friday/Easter Sunday, as the Easter Triduum. Basically, in my understanding of this. Three parts, of a ongoing connected event. Although, a teacher in Catholicism, could give a better account of this than I ever could.

And I sincerely hope that one day. Terms such as "Whore of the World" will no longer be used for the Catholic Church, or any other faith or belief.

[Calm]

33 minutes ago, Tony uk said:

And I sincerely hope that one day. Terms such as "Whore of the World" will no longer be used for the Catholic Church, or any other faith or belief

They are primarily used these days in my experience in connection with the Restored Church by critics, often trying to make the Church look bad as in exaggerating the impact of certain more extreme beliefs among members and leaders or trying to ignore the fact that change is built into our system through the doctrine of continuing revelation and eternal progression (line upon line learning) and acting as if old beliefs are still current even if no one has taught such for a long time.  When active members use the phrase for the Catholic Church in my experience, they are either pointing out we have never had that as a doctrinal belief or making a joke using it, which is unfortunate imo, but it’s seen as humorous because members don’t typically hold that view these days. There are no doubt some members who still believe this, but there are members into conspiracy theories, who take gospel hobbies to the extreme, and do all sorts of things counseled against by leadership.  I would say the sincere, devout member not into fundamentalism or other ideas verging into problematic territory who believes such things is rare and less educated in church doctrine and practices (possibly they have not had access to such materials while forming their ideas while encountering for some reason the more extreme claims…like an uneducated young missionary making unfounded claims they weren’t instructed to make).

 

Edited March 10 by Calm

[bluebell]

33 minutes ago, Tony uk said:

If the LDS is bringing to the attention of it's members the events leading up to Easter Sunday. Maybe it is just that, bringing to the attention the events, rather than giving them any individual significance within their own right. And just as a point of reference. The Catholic Church refers to Maundy Thursday/Good Friday/Easter Sunday, as the Easter Triduum. Basically, in my understanding of this. Three parts, of a ongoing connected event. Although, a teacher in Catholicism, could give a better account of this than I ever could.

And I sincerely hope that one day. Terms such as "Whore of the World" will no longer be used for the Catholic Church, or any other faith or belief.

Back in 1998 the church published an article explaining that the term (which comes from verses in the Book of Mormon) cannot be applied to any church.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1988/01/warring-against-the-saints-of-god?lang=eng

In my opinion there is no excuse for any member still trotting out this old anti-catholic sentiment. 

[bluebell]

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

They are primarily used these days in my experience in connection with the Restored Church by critics, often trying to make the Church look bad as in exaggerating the impact of certain more extreme beliefs among members and leaders or trying to ignore the fact that change is built into our system through the doctrine of continuing revelation and eternal progression (line upon line learning) and acting as if old beliefs are still current even if no one has taught such for a long time.  When active members use the phrase for the Catholic Church in my experience, they are either pointing out we have never had that as a doctrinal belief or making a joke using it, which is unfortunate imo, but it’s seen as humorous because members don’t typically hold that view these days. There are no doubt some members who still believe this, but there are members into conspiracy theories, who take gospel hobbies to the extreme, and do all sorts of things counseled against by leadership.  I would say the sincere, devout member not into fundamentalism or other ideas verging into problematic territory who believes such things is rare and less educated in church doctrine and practices (possibly they have not had access to such materials while forming their ideas while encountering for some reason the more extreme claims…like an uneducated young missionary making unfounded claims they weren’t instructed to make).

 

I’ve personally only heard it brought up once. It was in a church setting and it was said by an older member. This was back in 1997 and they were probably in their 60s at that time.  It’s the only time that I can ever remember a teacher stopping a lesson and flat out refuting what somebody had said. Normally if somebody says something off the wall in a class the teacher tries to step around it or softly push back, but this teacher flat out said that that sentiment was wrong and not acceptable.

The teacher was an institute teacher by profession though, so maybe he felt very comfortable correcting someone in class where other members might not.

[Calm]

I just did a search in the corpus of LDS conference talks and while early on there were quite a few uses of “whore” and “abominable” (assuming most of these are quoting “great and abominable” but I used my quota up trying to figure out how to search two separate words in the same talk so I can’t be sure how many), there’s significantly less as time goes on.  There’s been over the years waxing and waning of the word “Catholic” as well, but I could find no talk that had either of the first two words linked with “Catholic”.  So while the Catholic Church wasn’t always talked about in positive terms from the conference e pulpit, it would appear those specific labels/insults were not used there.

https://www.lds-general-conference.org

Last time “whore” was used was 1988 and it was coupled with the GandA referring to plain and precious things removed, this time in reference to the word “Atonement” only be once in the NT.  There was no implication it was the Catholic Church that was the culprit.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1988/04/atonement-agency-accountability?lang=eng

Edited March 10 by Calm

[Notatbm]

2 hours ago, Tony uk said:

If the LDS is bringing to the attention of it's members the events leading up to Easter Sunday. Maybe it is just that, bringing to the attention the events, rather than giving them any individual significance within their own right. And just as a point of reference. The Catholic Church refers to Maundy Thursday/Good Friday/Easter Sunday, as the Easter Triduum. Basically, in my understanding of this. Three parts, of a ongoing connected event. Although, a teacher in Catholicism, could give a better account of this than I ever could.

And I sincerely hope that one day. Terms such as "Whore of the World" will no longer be used for the Catholic Church, or any other faith or belief.

The LDS church is essentially trying to slow-roll its way into the average every day christian world with re-branding and "lowering" its own standards in order to blend in and not seem so weird. Now deceased apostle Jeffrey Holland essentially said this in a Q&A event and in the middle of it caught himself and changed the topic.

There may be exceptions, but I am not aware of any Christian religion who recognizes Mormons as true Christians. This is because they do not believe in the trinity as the Christian world does. That is the primary argument.  Anyway- here is a short list of recent changes (within 40 yrs or so) that illustrate the gradual shift. It is such a slow shif in fact that many members will gaslight other members and act as if we have always done things this way:

1-Lowering of dress standards for the youth, allowing the wearing of a crucifix, using worship bands at youth events

2-Changiong the definition of modest dress for women by allowing them to wear tank-top like clothing as opposed to always having their shoulders covered. A woman exposing her shoulders was considered to be presenting themselves a "pornography" to men

3- Changing the Home Teaching program to "Ministering" which is a term pretty much historically not used by Mormons, but regular Christians sure do

4- Up to three years ago, no one was talking about Palm Sunday or the rest of the events on the Liturgical calendar except for Easter. traditions of other churches are not anything Mormons historically do such as celebrate palm Sunday, last supper, ash Wednesday etc. Only thing ever celebrated and talked about has been Easter. Sure the events leading up to the resurrection have been discussed, but they have never been the subject of celebration. 

5- Using the term "Restored Church" to refer to mormonism while conversing with members of other faiths is a recent flex where one can talk civilly while at the same time remind the member of the non-mormon religion that Mormons are the only ones with the true restored gospel. 

Eventually the Mormon church will be indistinguishable from most of the others and members will start to act as if we have always done stuff this way. Is it wrong to change? Certainly not, but when up to this time we openly stated we do not celebrate holy week well they need to just come out and say ok now we do.....but only certain parts. The Church website is in conflict with itself as I initially posted.

As for the whore of the world issue- that was taught for a long time and even in the temple there was a script line about Popes being bought up by Satan with gold and silver. That was changed in 1990, but no church leader has come out and stated  what was stated in the temple was false doctrine (I wont hold my breath). At least I have never seen evidence of that. The LDS church has a policy of not issuing apologies so don't expect one from the Mormon church to the Pope anytime soon. I don't feel that way about Catholics and never have, but i know what I was taught and it will be at least 50 years until every last Mormon alive who was taught that or heard it in the temple is dead and gone. I do not believe every mormon who was taught that believes it, but it definitely was a thing. 

 

Edited March 11 by Notatbm
fixed bullet 3

[Notatbm]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

No, I don’t think you lied.  I also don’t think you really cared if it was true or not, and I think when you found out it wasn’t true that you downplayed the inaccuracy and pivoted to another angle (again, without really caring if it was true or not) to attempt to make the same case. 

I acknowledged and corrected it. Am I supposed to make some kind of formal apology to everyone for potentially inadvertently deceiving a person as to the actual title of Brad Wilcox?

Look- once that tape went public do you think for even one minute he didnt have a sit down with either the first presidency or at least a couple apostles where damage control was discussed?  He is (was) a General Officer of the Church and in such capacity he represented the church in his statements at that fireside and apparently in many others as he had the talk memorized. If the church does not like what he said, they make him do an apology and they get final say in what that apology consists of before he gets online with his wife and repents or whatever for his racist comments. That is how the church distanced itself from those statements. While he did apologize for the race thing, he did not apologize for the playing church commentary which was disgusting.

Now that the church got their mitts on him and corrected what they thought was in error, they left the playing church rant alone so now they own the commentary on it. Now it may as well have been an apostle who said it because they didn't have a problem with it. If you believe for one minute they couldn't shut him down, make him apologize for the whole thing and remove him from his calling you have another thing coming. Since they did not do that, church headquarters (Apostles or General Authorities) now own it. The lack of an apology for those really crappy comments about ALL OTHER RELIGIONS IN THE WORLD are now approved by the Mormon church and in reality  it doesn't matter if he was a general officer or general authority. 

[Notatbm]

7 hours ago, bluebell said:

Could this be a case where you weren't exactly aware of what Holy Week was and conflated the observance of Palm Sunday and Easter with an observance of Holy Week?

Nope- I am aware of what holy week is. I even mentioned earlier both Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday were a part of that, but the churches website says we do not observe holy week. If they were aware Easter and Palm Sunday were a part of holy week....they are aware... they wouldn't have coupled it with Holy week since Mormons conveniently disregard all the rest of it in terms of formal recognition, observance or celebration. Holy week in its entirety is a non-Mormon. Celebrating Easter is a Mormon tradition so why not just call it easter Sunday and move on? As one of my previous references showed the term "Holy Week" was mentioned in general conference for the very first time in 2023.... no matter how much you want it to be, it is not a Mormon thing. It may end up being that way though, I mean the restored church keeps changing what it believes so anything is possible.

[bluebell]

36 minutes ago, Notatbm said:

Nope- I am aware of what holy week is. I even mentioned earlier both Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday were a part of that, but the churches website says we do not observe holy week. If they were aware Easter and Palm Sunday were a part of holy week....they are aware... they wouldn't have coupled it with Holy week since Mormons conveniently disregard all the rest of it in terms of formal recognition, observance or celebration. Holy week in its entirety is a non-Mormon. Celebrating Easter is a Mormon tradition so why not just call it easter Sunday and move on? As one of my previous references showed the term "Holy Week" was mentioned in general conference for the very first time in 2023.... no matter how much you want it to be, it is not a Mormon thing. It may end up being that way though, I mean the restored church keeps changing what it believes so anything is possible.

Why would anyone care if it was a "mormon thing" or not?

[MustardSeed]

Yes.  The church has made big changes.  No they won’t discuss.  And when Christ returns we will all be in His church, there won’t be another. 
We just keep doing best we can.
 

Edited March 11 by MustardSeed

[Jay 4 Christ]

1 hour ago, MustardSeed said:

Yes.  The church has made big changes.  No they won’t discuss.  And when Christ returns we will all be in His church, there won’t be another. 
We just keep doing best we can.
 

No, we won't all be in his church, based on what I've learned about Mormon doctrine. Only those who have embraced the Mormon faith.

 

Mormon doctrine contradicts what you're saying, so why are Mormons trying to include everyone? 

 

Are Baptist in Christ church once he returns? The Mormon religion I've studied is saying no.

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

Yes.  The church has made big changes.  No they won’t discuss.  And when Christ returns we will all be in His church, there won’t be another. 
We just keep doing best we can.
 

I read a quote from Brigham Young that talks about how after Christ returns all the churches will still exist. There will still be Muslims, Buddhist, Baptists, etc. Because all good people will still be here on the Earth and will still be the same as they were before He came.  Everything will take time, even becoming a Zion people. I need to see if I can find the quote now.  I found it so interesting!

[bluebell]

54 minutes ago, Jay 4 Christ said:

No, we won't all be in his church, based on what I've learned about Mormon doctrine. Only those who have embraced the Mormon faith.

 

Mormon doctrine contradicts what you're saying, so why are Mormons trying to include everyone? 

 

Are Baptist in Christ church once he returns? The Mormon religion I've studied is saying no.

It’s more likely that it’s your understanding of our doctrine that contradicts and not our doctrine itself.  😊

Edited March 11 by bluebell