What are the most and least common Sacrament Hymns?

sacrament
frequency
Author

Joey Stanley

Published

September 7, 2023

Modified

March 19, 2026

One of the trickiest things to work with when examining how popular the hymns are is the sacrament hymns. While opening, sacrament, and closing hymns are all sung by congregations,1 the sacrament hymn itself is different because only a relatively small set of hymns are allowed. This means that those hymns will be among the most commonly sung hymns because there are fewer hymns to pick from but just as many chances to sing them, compared to other hymns. So, in this post, I dive into sacrament hymns.

1 See §19.3.2), although I swear the Handbook used to say that the opening hymn could be sung by the ward choir, but I’m not 100% sure on that.

In Section 1, I first define what I mean by a “Sacrament hymn.” Then in Section 2 show how common each sacrament hymn is when it’s sung in the sacrament slot in the meeting. Staying on the theme of the sacrament slot, Section 3 then looks at other hymns that are sung as if they were a sacrament hymn. Section 4 then returns to the canonical list and looks at when else they were sung.

Note

This post is based entirely on data from before the new hymns came out in June 2024. Here is an analysis of the new hymns and how the 1985 sacrament hymns were affected by them.

1 What counts as a sacrament hymn?

We’ll start off by looking at hymns in the sacrament slot, or rather, the hymn sung immediately before the sacrament is blessed and passed to the congregation. As far as I can tell, §19.3.2 of the General Handbook has the only instruction about sacrament hymns, and it says that “[t]he sacrament hymn should refer to the sacrament itself or to the sacrifice of the Savior.” This instruction is repeated on page 380 of the 1985 hymnal.

According to the Table of Contents, sacrament hymns go from 169 (As Now We Take the Sacrament) to 196 (Jesus, Once of Humble Birth). As far as I can tell, it doesn’t specifically state that the sacrament hymn must be one of those 28, but I think it’s a generally accepted that that’s what that phrase from the handbook means.2 So, for the purposes of this post, I’ll refer to those 28 as the “sacrament hymns.” Hymns that are sung immediately before the administration of the sacrament will be called “hymns sung in the sacrament slot” or something like that.

2 In fact, I’ve had church leaders enforce this constraint. I was in a ward where a newly-called music coordinator chose reverent hymns that were outside of that range. After about two weeks, the bishop announced that we’d be singing a different hymn than what was listed on the program and he changed it to a sacrament hymn. Presumably he later explained the policy to the chorister afterwards because we sang “true” sacrament hymns from then on.

2 Frequency

So let’s take a closer look at those 28 sacrament hymns. In theory, if a ward were to systematically cycle through them, they’d make it through all of them in a little over six months. However, Figure 1 shows that they’re definitely not all sung equally as often as each other.

Many plots throughout this website are formatted just like this one here. Hymns that are less common are in the lower left and hymns that are more common are in the upper right. The numbers along the bottom refer to how many times, on average, a ward will sing that hymn within a given year.
Figure 1: Frequency of sacrament hymns
Rank Title Number Average per year Every X years Every X months Every X weeks
1 I Stand All Amazed 193 2.763 0.362 4.343 17.374
2 In Humility, Our Savior 172 2.470 0.405 4.859 19.434
3 As Now We Take the Sacrament 169 2.451 0.408 4.895 19.580
4 There Is a Green Hill Far Away 194 2.311 0.433 5.194 20.775
5 Jesus, Once of Humble Birth 196 2.309 0.433 5.196 20.786
6 God Loved Us, So He Sent His Son 187 2.183 0.458 5.497 21.988
7 How Great the Wisdom and the Love 195 2.154 0.464 5.572 22.288
8 Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and King 181 2.074 0.482 5.786 23.144
9 God, Our Father, Hear Us Pray 170 2.052 0.487 5.848 23.393
10 Father in Heaven, We Do Believe 180 2.042 0.490 5.876 23.505
11 O God, the Eternal Father 175 2.025 0.494 5.926 23.705
12 We'll Sing All Hail to Jesus' Name 182 2.013 0.497 5.962 23.849
13 With Humble Heart 171 1.933 0.517 6.208 24.832
14 Upon the Cross of Calvary 184 1.923 0.520 6.240 24.959
15 Behold the Great Redeemer Die 191 1.790 0.559 6.705 26.822
16 Reverently and Meekly Now 185 1.730 0.578 6.938 27.753
17 In Memory of the Crucified 190 1.612 0.620 7.445 29.779
18 He Died! The Great Redeemer Died 192 1.584 0.631 7.577 30.310
19 While of These Emblems We Partake 174 1.546 0.647 7.764 31.055
20 'Tis Sweet to Sing the Matchless Love 177 1.524 0.656 7.876 31.504
21 Thy Will, O Lord, Be Done 188 1.337 0.748 8.973 35.894
22 While of These Emblems We Partake 173 1.314 0.761 9.132 36.530
23 'Tis Sweet to Sing the Matchless Love 176 1.274 0.785 9.423 37.690
24 In Remembrance of Thy Suffering 183 1.216 0.822 9.869 39.476
25 O Lord of Hosts 178 0.988 1.012 12.146 48.586
26 Again, Our Dear Redeeming Lord 179 0.868 1.152 13.828 55.311
27 Again We Meet Around the Board 186 0.754 1.327 15.919 63.675
28 O Thou, Before the World Began 189 0.545 1.833 22.000 88.000

Frequency of sacrament hymns

As I’ve written already, I Stand All Amazed (#193) is the most common hymn overall. Joining it at the top of the chart is In Humility, Our Savior (#172), As Now We Take the Sacrament (#169), There Is a Green Hill Far Away (#194), and Jesus, Once of Humble Birth (#196). These and a few others are each sung around two or three times per year, on average, or once every 4–5 months.

Most sacrament hymns are sung at least once a year per ward, on average, but there were some that were less common. O Lord of Hosts (#178), Again, Our Dear Redeeming Lord (#179), and Again We Meet Around the Board (#186) each averaged somewhere between once every 12 and 16 months. The least frequent sacrament hymn though was O Thou, Before the World Began (#189), showing up about once every 22 months.

It’s likely that the difference between the most frequent and the least frequent hymns is exaggerated if you ignore wards that systematically cycle through the sacrament hymns. In such wards I Stand All Amazed (#193) is sung about as often as O Thou, Before the World Began (#189). So averaging out all wards, those systematic wards will decrease the overall frequency of the most popular hymns and increase it in the least popular hymns. A previous version of this blog post explored that in more depth, but that analysis didn’t scale up very well with the larger dataset I have.

3 Non-sacrament hymns

Once in a while, a ward will indeed sing some other hymn in the sacrament slot. Many hymns were selected by at least one ward at least one time. Besides the 28 hymns in the 169–196 range, I have attestations of 165 other hymns being sung at least once in the 95,146 sacrament meetings in my database. The most common of these hymns is plotted in Figure 2. As you can see, two stood out. They are O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown (#197) and Gently Raise the Sacred Strain (#146).

Figure 2: Frequency of non-sacrament hymns sung in the sacrament slot

There is good reason for why Gently Raise the Sacred Strain (#146) and O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown (#197) two were sung as sacrament hymns: if you look up “Sacrament” in the topical index in the back of the hymnal, it is a list of all the hymns from 169–196, but it also includes these two. So, Figure 3 shows these two hymns added in with the rest, just to give an idea of how all sacrament hymns compare.

Figure 3: Frequency of sacrament hymns including the “honorary” sacrament hymns

Let’s start with O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown (#197). It was sung in the sacrament slot about once every two years per ward on average. Given that it feels like a sacrament hymn and like an Easter hymn, it is perfectly placed between the more on-the-nose sacrament hymns (i.e. those about the bread and water) and the more traditional Easter hymns (e.g. He Is Risen! (#199)). Perhaps some music coordinators noticed it in the Index and chose it because of that. But, I could see a music coordinator selecting it because they perhaps thought sacrament hymns went from 169–197 instead of 169–196.

The oddball though is Gently Raise the Sacred Strain (#146). In fact, it was sung in the sacrament slot about once every 2.06 years per ward, which is only a little less often than O Thou, Before the World Began (#189). It is not clear to me why this one is listed in the index as a sacrament hymn, but it’s not grouped together with the other sacrament hymns. The “Prayer and Supplication” category of hymns, which is what this is a part of (and rightfully so, in my opinion), is just before the “Sacrament” category. If it, like O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown (#197), fits into both categories, then I think it should be moved to be hymn 168 so that it’s less out of left field. This one really should be thought of as an honorary sacrament hymn. Perhaps we’ll see it included in the “official” list of sacrament hymns in the next hymnal.

TipRecommendation for the next hymnal

Consider putting Gently Raise the Sacred Strain (#146) immediately before the list of sacrament hymns.

As for the other hymns that are sung in the sacrament slot, there’s nothing more to say other than occasionally you’ll see some other Christ-focused hymn (like Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee (#141) or I Believe in Christ (#134)), a fasting hymn (In Fasting We Approach Thee (#139) or Bless Our Fast, We Pray (#138)) or some other generally common, reverent hymn being used. On average, this occurs about once every 69, or in about 1.5% of sacrament meetings.

4 Sacrament hymns sung elsewhere

Finally, we can look at sacrament hymns that were sung at some other point in a sacrament meeting. Table 1 shows the sacrament hymns in order of how often they’re sung elsewhere during the meeting.

Table 1
When during the meeting are each of the sacrament hymns sung?
In order of how often they're sung not as sacrament hymns
hymn Opening Sacrament Intermediate Closing
I Stand All Amazed (193) 2.44% 91.49% 2.08% 3.98%
'Tis Sweet to Sing the Matchless Love (177) 1.16% 97.35% 0.74% 0.74%
Again We Meet Around the Board (186) 0.67% 97.99% 0.50% 0.84%
Behold the Great Redeemer Die (191) 0.56% 98.17% 0.70% 0.56%
Thy Will, O Lord, Be Done (188) 0.37% 98.41% 0.56% 0.66%
Father in Heaven, We Do Believe (180) 0.68% 98.46% 0.18% 0.68%
O Thou, Before the World Began (189) 0.24% 98.58% 0.47% 0.71%
There Is a Green Hill Far Away (194) 0.33% 98.59% 0.33% 0.76%
God Loved Us, So He Sent His Son (187) 0.23% 98.62% 0.46% 0.69%
Reverently and Meekly Now (185) 0.36% 98.76% 0.36% 0.51%
'Tis Sweet to Sing the Matchless Love (176) 0.40% 98.81% 0.30% 0.49%
Jesus, Once of Humble Birth (196) 0.43% 98.86% 0.38% 0.32%
He Died! The Great Redeemer Died (192) 0.39% 98.89% 0.32% 0.39%
God, Our Father, Hear Us Pray (170) 0.49% 98.96% 0.18% 0.37%
How Great the Wisdom and the Love (195) 0.29% 99.07% 0.17% 0.47%
O Lord of Hosts (178) 0.39% 99.10% 0.26% 0.26%
Upon the Cross of Calvary (184) 0.26% 99.22% 0.26% 0.26%
In Remembrance of Thy Suffering (183) 0.21% 99.28% 0.21% 0.31%
While of These Emblems We Partake (174) 0.24% 99.35% 0.16% 0.24%
Again, Our Dear Redeeming Lord (179) 0.00% 99.42% 0.29% 0.29%
In Memory of the Crucified (190) 0.00% 99.45% 0.23% 0.31%
O God, the Eternal Father (175) 0.19% 99.50% 0.19% 0.12%
While of These Emblems We Partake (173) 0.00% 99.52% 0.19% 0.29%
As Now We Take the Sacrament (169) 0.00% 99.54% 0.05% 0.41%
With Humble Heart (171) 0.13% 99.55% 0.19% 0.13%
We'll Sing All Hail to Jesus' Name (182) 0.12% 99.56% 0.19% 0.12%
In Humility, Our Savior (172) 0.00% 99.59% 0.15% 0.25%
Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and King (181) 0.00% 99.70% 0.18% 0.12%
Based on 40,795 sacrament meetings through May 2024

Unsurprisingly, I Stand All Amazed (#193) is at the top, being sung occasionally as an opening hymn, intermediate, and closing hymn. At only once every five years, it’s not particularly common to see it sung this way, but it’s still not unheard of. After that, there are a few others like ’Tis Sweet to Sing the Matchless Love (#177) and There Is a Green Hill Far Away (#194) that were also used as one of the other hymns, but it was still quite unusual.

Overall, while singing a specific sacrament hymn elsewhere in the meeting is pretty unusual, the odds of singing any of the sacrament hymns is more common since their frequencies add together. It happened in 529 of the 40,795 sacrament meetings I have data from, or 1.3% of them. That means, on average, a ward might since hymn 169–196 at some other point in the meeting approximately once every 1.61 years.

5 Conclusion

The findings in this post suggest that were have a strong tradition of singing hymns 169 through 196 in our sacrament meetings immediately before the sacrament itself. Some wards systematically cycle through them, which I believe is a perfectly appropriate thing to do to include the widest variety of hymns to the ward. Other wards pick and choose, which inevitably leads to some favorites being sung more and some lesser-known ones falling through the cracks. And the variation in the new hymns suggests that we rely on this grouping of page numbers when determining which hymns to sing.

As I’ve shown in analyses focused on specific holidays, wards do not always stick to the table of contents at the beginning of the hymnal when choosing appropriate hymns. However, in the case of the sacrament—which is the most important part of our Sunday worship and the primary reason for Sunday gatherings—it’s clear that we adhere strongly to the recommendation. Nevertheless, the addition of Gently Raise the Sacred Strain (146) shows that there is at least some room for thinking out of the box when selecting sacrament hymns.