Through the sacrament, we invite the Savior’s influence into our week, one decision at a time.
A few years ago, I sat in a church meeting and silently prayed that my friend would understand at least part of what each speaker was saying. She had recently moved to the United States, and English was not her first language. Phrases like personal revelation and divine identity filled the air, and I kept glancing at her, wondering if she understood. When the meeting ended, she said she had enjoyed it, and my missionary companion and I arranged to visit her later that week.
When she arrived at our next meeting, her face was radiant. She shared how deeply the ordinance of the sacrament had touched her. Over the past few days, she said, she had completely changed as a person. She had been less prideful and more gentle with her husband and son, and had felt Christ with her throughout the week. I was stunned. While I had been concerned about whether she understood what had been shared in the meeting, she had focused on the promise she made to her Savior during the sacrament. She allowed the promise to “always remember him” (see Doctrine and Covenants 20:75–79) sink into her heart and change the decisions she had made during the week.
In a devotional titled “Always Remember Him,” Elder Ulisses Soares shares that the word remember comes from the Latin memor, meaning “to be mindful of,” while the prefix re– means “again.” Each Sunday, when we take the sacrament, we are intentionally mindful of what Christ has done for us and promise to let our remembrance of him shape our choices. Elder Soares teaches that “remembering the Savior every single day affects every single decision we make.” This daily mindfulness helps us stay near our Savior’s guiding presence.
Photo by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Of course, remembering Christ doesn’t mean we’ll be perfect. Only he was. That is why, every Sunday during the sacrament, we are invited to take time to remember his life, his sacrifice, and his mercy. The sacrament can be a sacred time of repentance and forgiveness, strengthening us to overcome our daily challenges and mistakes. However, because the sacrament happens weekly, it can be easy to take it for granted. Yet its repetition is a gift—a constant reminder that his Atonement is infinite and the invitation to return to him never ends, no matter how many mistakes we make in our daily lives.
I think about my friend every Sunday. She taught me much more than I ever taught her, including a lesson on the power of remembering Christ during the sacrament and letting it change me throughout the week. Like my friend, let us receive the sacrament each Sunday with renewed gratitude and intention, truly remembering the Savior so that his grace can continue to change us, one day at a time.
Read more about the power of remembering the Savior in daily living in Elder Ulisses Soares’s devotional “Always Remember Him.”
Source: BYU Speeches
—Elizabeth Reynolds, Latter-day Saint Insights
FEATURE IMAGE BY THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
Find more insights
Learn more about how the sacrament points us to the Atonement of Jesus Christ by reading Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s speech “This Do in Remembrance of Me.”
Read more about the deep spiritual significance of the sacrament in Elder L. Tom Perry’s speech “As Now We Take the Sacrament.”