David W. Grua and Jonathan A. Stapley on Early LDS Approaches to the Sacrament Prayers

  The following notes are taken from:

David W. Grua and Jonathan A. Stapley, “The Letter and the Spirit: The Lord’s Supper and Set Forms in Two Restoration Churches,” The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 43, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2023): 221-22, 224, 225

 

While no contemporaneous sources recorded the exact words used by an administrator during Smith Jr.’s lifetime, the church clerk George W. Watt captured the words of such a prayer offered in public meeting held in Nauvoo, Illinois, in June 1845, a year following Smith Jr.’s murder. Watt was an English immigrant who was an expert in the shorthand methods developed by Isaac Pitman. From his minutes, it appears that the administrator, Brigham Young—one of Smith Jr.’s original apostles and leader of the largest Restoration group in 1845—did not completely ignore the canonical prayer. Instead, Young approached the sacrament prayer similar to how many Protestants used the Lord’s Prayer, that is, as a model that could be memorized and drawn upon when extemporizing but not repeated verbatim. There is no evidence that Young’s 1845 extemporized sacrament prayer was controversial or that it was seen as a departure from accepted practice. It therefore seems likely that his prayer was typical of extemporaneous sacrament blessings offered during the early years of the Restoration movement. Shorthand minutes of other meetings confirm that Young’s 1845 blessing was not an aberration but was instead representative of the blessings he offered through the 1850s as he patterned his extemporaneous prayers on the canonical blessings. (Brigham Young, Blessing of the Bread, 20 February 1853; Brigham Young, Blessing on the Water, 20 February 1853; Brigham Young, Blessing on the Water, 18 December 1859; shorthand notes by George D. Watt, transcription by LaJean Carruth, Church History Department Pitman Shorthand Transcriptions, 2013-2022, CR 100 912, CHL)

 

FIGURE 1: Comparison of canonical prayer over the bread and Brigham Young’s 8 June 1845 bread prayer.
Doctrine and Covenants 2:22, p. 98 (1844 ed.)	Brigham Young, Blessing on Bread, 8 June 1845
O God, the eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it, that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen.	Our Father in Heaven in the name of Jesus we pray that thou would bless and sanctify this bread to the use and benefit of all take of it that it may be the bread of life to all of us realizing what thou hast done for us saved in thy presence take of this bread eye to thy glory power of Holy Ghost [eat?] of the same and may that spirit [Savior] in the earth fill our bosom help us to witness to judge whether that we live and that we are willing to keep their end of earthly enjoyments for the sake of the excellence of religious character our Lord helps us to repent of all our sins to return from all our evils. To do thy will and work righteousness that we may be accepted of thee thine if the kingdom power and glory worlds without end amen.

 

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Brigham Young initiated a reform of sacrament administration in Utah with a particular emphasis on the prayers. Unlike in the Reorganization, in which local disputations over scripture and practice precipitated Smith III’s foray into the debate, in Utah it was Young as church president who concluded that changes in practice needed to occur and then sought to implement his reforms. . . . In 1865, when addressing a conference in Payson, Utah, Young called “attention to the administering of the sacrament, noticing how few in blessing the bread and water followed the form laid down in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants.” (“Correspondence,” Deseret News, June 21, 1865, 301) A few years later he noted that when some administrators blessed the emblems, “there are not three words of the prayer that is in this book.” (Brigham Young, Sermon, 31 August 1873, Journal of Discourses [Liverpool: Joseph F. Smith, 1874], 16:161; Brigham Young, Jr., Journal, 6 Mar. 1870, MS 1236, CHL) What drove Young to implement change, therefore, was his observation that administrators were not using canonical prayers as models but were instead extemporizing without any pattern. . . . The aversion to using set forms, however, ran deep. Young sought to alleviate these concerns by encouraging administrators to deliver the prayers from memory. While reading the prayers aloud was permissible, it was inferior to being able to close the eyes, repeat the prayer from memory, and thereby better contemplate the meaning of the prayers during the delivery. Quoting Methodist founder John Wesley, Young noted that an administrator “cant read & think prayer at the same time.” (Brigham Young, jr., diary, 6 March, 1870, digital images of holograph, MS 1236, CHL)