Quotes About the Sacrament
"What should we do before partaking of this sacrament? We should look into our souls and see whether we have any unforgiveness there toward any of our fellow creatures, especially toward any of the household of faith. Have you any bitterness in your heart toward your brother or your sister, or any of mankind? If you have, remove that bitterness and repent of the weakness by which that bitterness has found a resting place within you, and remove it from your heart. Harbor it not in your spirit; for it is evil. It corrupts us to allow the spirit of hatred or animosity to find a resting-place in our souls. Therefore we should not partake of this sacrament with such feelings in our souls. We should forgive those who trespass against us. We should make peace with our brother and with our sister and with all mankind, and establish peace in our hearts, so that when we come to the house of God to partake of the sacrament we may do it with clean hands and pure hearts before the Lord."
Joseph F. Smith, July 16, 1893, "Collected Discourses, 1987-1992," 5 vols., Stuy, Brian H., ed., Burbank, California, and Woodland Hills, Utah: B.H.S. Publishing.
"I am a witness that there is a Spirit that attends the sacrament that warms the soul from head to foot. You feel the wounds on the spirit being lifted."
Melvin J. Ballard
"It is essential that we renew our covenants by partaking of the sacrament. When we do this with a sincere heart, with real intent, forsaking our sins, and renewing our commitment to God, the Lord provides a way whereby sins can be forgiven from week to week. Simply eating the bread and drinking the water will not bring that forgiveness. We must prepare and then partake with a broken heart and contrite spirit. The spiritual preparation we make to partake of the sacrament is essential to receiving a remission of our sins."
Vaughn J. Featherstone, Ensign, Sept. 2001
"Sacrament meeting is often the primary means for rescuing the troubled soul."
Vaughn J. Featherstone, Ensign, Sept. 2001
"We need to strengthen our sacrament meetings and make them hours of worship in very deed. Cultivate a spirit of reverence, an attitude in which people come into the chapel and are quiet and reverent and thoughtful. There is too much noise. We are a social people, but I wish we would not keep it up so loudly in the chapel."
Gordon B. Hinckley, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, regional conference, 27 Apr. 1996
"We are a covenant people. I have had the feeling that if we could just encourage our people to live by three or four covenants everything else would take care of itself; we would not have to have anything else except to go forward with our program.
"The first of these is the covenant of the sacrament, in which we take upon ourselves the name of the Savior and agree to keep His commandments with the promise in His covenant that He will bless us with His spirit. If our people would go to sacrament meeting every week and reflect as they partake of the sacrament on the meaning of the prayers which are offered, . . . if they would listen to the language of those prayers, which were given by revelation, and live by them, we would be a better people, all of us would be. That is the importance of the sacrament meeting. The speakers are incidental. The great thing is that we gather together and partake of the sacrament together...."
"The solemn moments of thought while the sacrament is being served have great significance. They are moments of self-examination, introspection, self-discernment—a time to reflect and to resolve. "
Howard W. Hunter - Ensign, May 1977, p. 25