Akron Ohio Stake News

The Superlative Sacramental Prayer

In these and other extraordinary times, when physically gathering for the Sacrament is restricted, when Priesthood authority is not proximate to administer the ordinance, or when whatever pestilence keeps us from partaking The Lord’s Supper, we each would still always have the sacred Sacramental Prayer to partake in mind and spirit.

As we parse and ponder the Sacramental Prayer (D&C 20:77, 79/Moroni 4:3, 5:2), we may come to evermore appreciate that it is divinely-crafted, verbatim-recited, and weekly-repeated to us throughout our mortal life.

The Eternal Father is addressed four times in the prayer while thy Son is referred to five times and his Spirit promised twice. The prayer, ascendant, directs and re-directs us to the Godhead. Descendant, on the other hand, the prayer is offered for and points us to our souls—oft starved and parched souls in a world that ceaselessly and ironically calls us to look out for me, myself, and I.

If the best prayers are given by God to us and then uttered by us back to God, the Sacramental Prayer is the prayer of best prayers. And if a prayer takes the sacrifice of the Son of God to come to be, it is the prayer of most precious (and may we add, most costly) prayers. Besides, the Sacramental Prayer, as part of the ordinance, is not only a prayer of words but of emblematic acts that physically make inward that which is heavenward. Of course, when external circumstances thwart our eating and drinking of the bread and water, our heart may still freely internalize the emblems. As such, the Sacramental Prayer seems ought to be not only a Sunday prayer but a morning prayer.

But it is not an easy prayer. For if it achieves the communion that prayers aspire to achieve, we will see beyond the subdued references in the prayer the excruciatingly broken body and violently spilt blood of Christ as they were. Our heart breaks for the suffering of our Savior, and our spirit becomes contrite for our sins that caused the suffering. Quietly but commonly, that is the point when the Lord draws nigh (Psalms 34:18). Our spiritual sensibilities quickened, between the horror of Gethsemane and Calvary and the comfort of the blessed bread and sanctified water, amidst the conflict of broken laws and mercy, we feel a full array and many opposites of emotions, from exclamation of wretchedness and exquisite sorrow to gratitude for ransom and exquisite joy, out of which a desire to change is hopefully kindled, followed by a trembling to promise and even a determination to keep the promise.

And how great is His wisdom, for of all the good promises we can make, our tutoring God proffers these three: First and foremost, to be a bearer of His name. Then, most importantly—if repetition (four times) denotes importance—be in remembrance of and always remember Him. Then, most consequentially, keep His commandments. (Might we say consequently too, for if we truly take upon His name and always remember Him, we will consequently keep His commandments?)

But wait, are we so great with even promises? Hence, a most graceful word in the prayer is “willing,” for God accepts our mere willingness, tolerates our weaknesses, and allows time for our sincerity to take effect. And we understate His grace if we don’t notice that the only past tense employed in the prayer is “was shed,” and the only references to the past were about the Lord’s body and blood. No dwelling upon our old deeds or harrowing of our bygone crimes. All else in the prayer is present or forward-looking. The only past we’re pointed to is the atonement of Christ.

Then, God provides the assurance. Not any assured outcome or end results, to be sure, as some lesser gods or populist religions may present. For God blesses our labor that brings the harvest, not the other way around. And so a helper in the field He grants, who is the enabling agent of transformation and new births—even the Holy Spirit of promise (D&C 88:3).

O, our Sacramental Prayer, even more superlative when all its parts come together: a celebratory synopsis of the first principles of the Gospel, a script for Christian living, a filling for those who hunger and thirst, an atoning for saints and sinners, a worthy adjunct of the Holy Sacrament and a manifestation of the power of Godliness (D&C 84:20)!