The Sabbath gives us many opportunities to reflect upon the previous week. Whether it is during Church or at home afterwords, Sunday offers us the rest that we need to tackle the tasks that lie ahead of us during the upcoming week. I think that an essential element to this reflecting is uplifting music. Music can bring the spirit into a situation like no other thing I know. From the Doctrine and Covenants we learn that “the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads” (see D&C 25:12). Music can help put us in the right frame of mind to receive blessings in the form of revelation.

At first I thought that this was just a modern occurrence that has happened because of church choirs and spiritual music. The most amazing thing that I found in my recent study of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ Himself found comfort in a hymn right before he atoned for the sins of the world. The account that Mark gives says: “And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives” (Mark 14:26). I’m sure that this gave a lot of comfort to the Savior as He realized that His time had come. It must have been very bittersweet as the Twelve and the other people who had gathered for the occasion sang that hymn. I hope that we all can continue to listen to uplifting music to help bring the Spirit into our lives.