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Last Supper : DaVinci
[This is amazing to see in person : thank you, Raimondo Castellani!] |
I gave this talk today.
Remember
I felt I should talk about the reason we are here today : to
partake – literally – of the ordinance of the sacrament.
I began by remembering some memorable times I have received
the sacrament.
When I was 16, I participated in a huge girls conference at
BYU called “LaurelLife.” Hundreds of girls from all over the US and Canada were
there to learn how to be leaders in the church.
The final day of the conference was – unusually – on Sunday. We held a sacrament meeting in the Wilkinson
Center ballroom. The speaker that day was President Harold B Lee, who taught us
that in order to light the fire of the gospel in others, a testimony needed to
be burning in our own souls. Aaronic priesthood holders from many Provo and
Orem wards were there to pass the trays.
Members of he Presiding Bishopric of the Church said the sacrament
prayers. I could tell that Bishop Simpson was directly speaking with someone he
knew in that prayer. I knew from the
burning within me that day that HE knew God lives.
I asked friends and family to send me emails telling me about
their memories of the sacrament:
For Randy
: the most moving sacrament prayer was in Tiberias branch in Israel
overlooking the Sea of Galilee when [he] gave it in Spanish.
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| Last Supper : Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret |
David remembers the very
first time he blessed the sacrament He and his sister Karen were going with the
HS marching band to Disney World. David
asked permission from the bishop to bless the sacrament. So on Sunday morning
they found a quiet corner of the dining room and David broke and blessed a
piece of French toast – the only bread he could find he could find – and a cup
of water for the two of them, praying the sacrament prayers for the first time.
In those
prayers we ask God, in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify
- or make holy - the bread and water to
the souls of all those who partake of it; that we may eat and drink in remembrance of the body and blood of His
Son, and witness that we are willing to take upon ourselves the name of the
Son, and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he hath given us,
that we may always have his Spirit to be with us.
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| For Us : Walter Rane |
Reading
that I am always reminded that the sacrament is NOT about US. This prayer does not ask God to forgive our
sins : it asks us to REMEMBER JESUS CHRIST and what HE DID and take HIS NAME
upon us.
I believe
that when we immerse ourselves in holy actions by keeping the commandments – in
listening to the Holy Spirit as it reminds us of what Jesus would do - that helps us remember and copy what He has done,
That is
how we take His name upon us, this is how we become Holy and Sanctified
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| Rise and Walk : Richard Lance Russell |
My favorite verse from scripture
revealing the name of the LORD is Exodus 34: 5-7
5
And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with [Moses] there [on Mt
Sinai], and proclaimed the name of the LORD.
6 .
. . The LORD, [Jehovah Elohim], merciful
and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
7 [Offering] mercy to thousands, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin,
When we remember and immerse ourselves in THAT Name, we begin to
act like Jesus. And, in the process, we
are changed.
Julie Beck taught in 2007 that "We
partake of the sacrament week after week to show our faith in His power to
change us." (Ensign May 2007 “Remembering, Repenting and Changing”)
My son Mike recalled the
words of King Benjamin and Jesus’s brother James who wrote, “Pure religion and
undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows
in their affliction, and [thus] keep [oneself] unspotted from the world.” (James 1:27)
King Benjamin taught that we receive
the covenant blessing of baptism in the same way: “For the sake of retaining a
remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I
would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every[one] according
to that which [they have], such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked,
visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and
temporally, according to their wants.” (Mosiah 4:26)
The world offers us daily
opportunities to be Christ like. Many
times, the most important poor people to feed and clothe and care for are the
ones we help every day : our own children, parents, and neighbors.
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| The Visit : Chu Chu |
One thought [my son Doug] had about the sacrament is that it makes the very
experience of eating into something holy. … eating is something everyone does
every day and we don't think about it, but something that is not you can become
a part of you when you eat. [We can change.]
Each meal we prepare and bless can be a holy time, a time to rejoice in our
salvation.
I recall a women’s
conference I attended near Kirtland OH 30 years ago. On Friday and Saturday, three husbands of
women attending the conference prepared and served the meals to us, and then,
on Sunday morning, they blessed and passed the sacrament, using the same dinner
plates and cups. It was a holy
meal. I realized how unusual it
was in our culture at that time to have men prepare and serve a meal to women,
with the men eating last. It reminded me of Jesus sending out the 12 to feed
the 5000, the apostles serving food to women and children, to the poor, rather
than sitting waiting to be served.
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| Lord's Supper : Hi Fai Wong |
Each of my sons has good
memories of unusual Sacrament meetings at Scout camp, testimony meetings around
fires. The entire purpose of the Scouting program was to teach skills so that
scouts would BE PREPARED and able to do a good turn daily. Steve especially
liked one metaphor from the scriptures: speaking of his second coming, Jesus
said that “Wheresoever the body is, there will the eagles be gathered." (Luke
17:37) Each Sunday, gathered around
Christ’s body and blood on the Sacrament table, should be Eagle Scouts. This is especially cool if you know that one
of the Hebrew words for eagle is rachemah, which means those who show
mercy. Each of my kids are 'eagles.'
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| In Remembrance of His Blood : Trent Gudmunsen |
My daughter, Karen wrote : I think of the two . . .sacrament [prayers] as
representing two different things.
The bread, representing His
body, shows His victory over death and reminds us that we will be resurrected.
The water, representing His
blood, shows His victory over sin, and reminds us that we will be [forgiven
and] saved from the second death and be able to enter God’s presence
again
We can actively make the weekly
sacrament memorable:
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| In Remembrance of Me : Brooke Malia Mann |
My daughter Heather wrote: A few years ago, I was praying about how to
help my children feel more connected to Christ as they took the sacrament each
week.
The answer I received was to
make bread together and then take it to church to be used in the sacrament that
week.
As we made the bread, I was able
to talk about each ingredient and how it relates to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We talked about how just a tiny
bit of yeast can make miracles happen and make the dough grow big and soft.
We talked about how a little bit
of sweetness feeds the yeast and goes a long way.
We talked about being
wheat instead of tares.
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| Small and Simple Things : David Stay |
We talked about being the
salt of the earth—and laughed about the time I forgot to put salt in the pizza
dough and how horrible it tasted!As the dough came together, we
talked about how Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life. As we kneaded and
stretched the dough, we remembered how His body was smitten, bruised, and torn
for us.
Then we put it in the oven to
rise and when we took it out we remembered how He left the tomb and rose again
for us, so that we too can be resurrected and live together forever.
When we put it in the hot oven
to bake, we talked about how going through trials can form us into something
new and better and different.
And as we tasted the sweet
finished bread, we talked about how sweet it is to have Christ in our life and
feast on His word every day.
It was such an unexpectedly
powerful experience to have with my children and more and more thoughts and
comparisons kept coming to my mind as I talked and worked with the kids.
As we shared our offering with
our congregation the next day, we were happy to be able to be a small part of
such a sacred moment as we each in turn partook of the bread and remembered our
Savior’s love and sacrifice for each of us.
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| And Should We Die : Jen Tolman |
[Finally] (a dear friend who is a widow) wrote: my most
spiritual experiences with ‘the Sacrament‘ have been during COVID when I didn’t
have access to the ordinance. At the
start of COVID when Sacrament meeting wasn’t held, I was able to go to [my
daughter’s home nearby] and join them for family Sacrament meeting because
priesthood holders were given permission to administer sacrament [in our
homes].When
regular meetings began again, [for health reasons] I chose to watch [my own
ward's] Sacrament meeting [alone at home]
via zoom where they turn off sound and picture during the ordinance.
The first week [during that quiet time] I
turned to [Moroni in] the Book of Mormon and read the sacrament prayers. The spirit
was so strong it caught me by surprise. I had rarely experienced God’s love so
powerfully - when I didn’t have access to the sacrament, I could still renew my
resolve (rather [like] renewing my covenants) in a very personal way.
It is my testimony that our lives can change and become holy if we keep the promises we make in partaking
of the sacrament, by taking His Name upon us and doing what Jesus would do.
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| The Last Supper : J Kirk Richards |
Many of these paintings are from the Church's 2019 11th International Art Competition— Meditations on Belief
Laurelife.
Laurel Leadership Conference, Brigham Young University, August 22-26, 1970. Young
Women's Mutual Improvement Association. Brigham
Young University, 1970 - 20 pages
