The phrase “The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn to Their Fathers” has a different meaning for LDS Church members than it does in any other group that relies on Old Testament scripture. We conflate this phrase with a wide variety of theological topics, including family history, temple sealing and even, as in the current Come Follow Me lesson, the restoration.

In this sense, the phrase suggests that we need to turn our hearts to putting in place an analogue of what enabled our predecessors to connect with God. And in its broadest sense, this not only refers to religious authority and structure, but also the cultural elements that help us commune with the Eternal — things like music and poetry.

Was that implied in Moroni’s comments to the young Joseph Smith in his quadruple-visitation? Does Moroni’s quotation of Malachi simply mean that we need to do family history work? Or is the turn to our Fathers something that is much broader and more complicated? Our current understanding of the idea of Restoration implies something broader, and more complicated — something that will involve more than just ordinances recorded on paper and instead ordinances that are written in our hearts, that lead our hearts to turn to God.

 

God has a work for me to do.

This turn in our hearts means that we have work to do, perhaps even callings beyond simply the tasks we are given to make our living or to participate at Church. The lesson calls these responsibilities, and the following poem suggests the kind of work that the Lord has for us to do.

 

We Love Our Work

by M. E. Abel

We love our work, we want to live

That Father’s blessings we’ll receive.

Help us to cleanse our hearts from sin,

That Thy pure love may dwell therein.

O, Father, grant us strength and power;

Our mission needs Thee every hour.

Help us in what we want to do,

That to our trust we may prove true.

We want to live our love to show

To father’s children here below.

We want to comfort in distress,

We want to give all happiness.

We want to leave no stone unturned;

We want our lesson here well learned;

We want to point to Heaven’s goal,

To help in saving every soul.

We want to show our bishops all,

We’re minute women at their call;

We want no more to speak unkind,

But good in others quickly find.

We want our lives at home, abroad,

To show that we are Saints of God,

That our good works may ever bring

Glory and praise to Christ our King.

1915

 

By restoring His gospel, the Savior fulfilled ancient prophecies.

Undoubtedly part of turning our hearts to our Fathers is recognizing the prophecies they made that apply to our day, even when those prophecies might seem very different from how we see the world today. A good example of this is the idea of gathering. When the following was written, the idea that members of the Church should pick up and move to be together, to form a Zion society was a basic teaching, that was emphasized to all members, and led to much struggle. While we are no longer asked to do that, we instead focus on gathering spiritually (and maybe culturally as well?). This idea of gathering echoes throughout the scriptures, and Phelps here tries to connect those echoes with the Church in his day. I wonder if we can see echoes in it for our day?

 

The Gathering

by William W. Phelps

WHAT wond’rous things we now behold,

Which were declar’d from days of old

By prophets, who in vision clear

Beheld those glories from afar.

The visions which the God,

Confirm’d by his unchanging word,

That to the ages then unborn

His greatest work he would perform.

The second time he’d set his hand

To gather Israel to their land,

Fulfil [fulfill] the cov’nants he had made,

And pour his blessings on their head.

When Moab’s remnant, long oppress’d,

Should gather’d be and greatly blest:

And Ammons children, scatter’d wide,

Return with joy, in peace abide.

While Elam’s race a feeble band,

Receive a share in the blest land;

And Gentiles, all their power display

To hasten on the glorious day.

Then Ephraim’s sons, a warlike race,

Shall haste in peace and see their rest,

And earth’s remotest parts abound,

With joys of everlasting sound.

Assyria’s captives, long since lost,

In splendor come a num’rous host;

Egyptia’s waters fill’d with fear,

Their power feel and disappear.

Yes, Abram’s children now shall be

Like sand in number by the sea;

While kindreds, tongues, and nations all

Combine, to make the numbers full.

The dawning of that day has come,

See! Abram’s sons are gath’ring home,

And daughters too, with joyful lays,

Are hast’ning here to join in praise!

O God, our Father, and our King,

Prepare our voices and our theme;

Let all our pow’rs in one combine

To sing thy praise in songs divine.

1834

 

God will prepare me to work in His kingdom.

As we turn our hearts to our Fathers, and begin to do His work, we must be prepared for the work to do. Here, Elza R. Snow sees the preparation we need to make for Life, and God’s role in helping us to that preparation:

 

Life

By Eliza R. Snow

LIFE! What a treasure, how great is its worth!

Life! What a blessing to man on the earth!

Life let us value and cherish the prize,

Learn to preserve it, ye Saints, and be wise.

Vainly we struggle preparing to die,

Vainly aspire to the mansions on high;

If we are abusing the life we receive,

It is not to die, it is duty to live.

Life is the crown we are toiling to gain,

Live is the jewel we hope to obtain,

Life——the existence God gives us today;

Life is no trifle to barter away.

What tho’ in patience and faith we endure,

Life, life eternal we cannot secure

Till we shall learn how to value and save

Life, present life, from a premature grave.

Life, present life, let us study its laws,

Know each effect, understand every cause,

Seek to promote it and lengthen its span.

Life, present life, what a blessing to man,

Great is the mission to teach how to live.

Long life is profered, O, who will receive?

Life is a pledge of existence on high,

Learning to live will prepare us to die.

1890

 

The Lord sent Elijah to turn my heart to my ancestors.

Of course, turning our hearts to our Fathers is usually thought of as Temple work—the sealing of person to person, and generation to generation, fostered by the collection and analysis of family history work in mechanical work that I suspect is not unlike tending a garden—our simple regular tasks allow growth in relationships beyond names on paper, if we will allow them. It seems to me that most spiritual work is based on everyday mundane tasks that become holy by how we treat them. If we see our ancestors as mere names on a page, as mere statistics that we accumulate to get our family history “done,” then our hearts haven’t really turned to them. Instead, if we treat them as real people, with whom we have a kind of sacred relationship, as Lula Greene Richards does in the following poem, then our hearts will really have turned to them.

 

The Records of Our Dead

by Lula Greene Richards

They sleep! And peaceful is their rest,

And sacred every spot of ground

Upon our common mother’s breast

Wherein their thousand graves are found.

And sacred, too, the resting place

Of some beneath the ocean’s storms, –

For not alone in earth’s embrace

Are pillowed all their precious forms.

What treasured wealth their records show –

Important every name and date.

As thus their lives we learn to know,

What reverence these lives create!

As carefully the leaves we turn,

Search references with eager eyes,

Our sympathies awakened yearn

O’er far removed yet kindred ties.

As back we follow family names,

Still in our generation known,

For former heroes, fancy claims,

Traits which are present heroes own;

Thus all the way we seem to find,

As link by link the chain we trace,

Man’s noble bearing, generous mind,

Or woman’s purity and grace.

For here as at the funeral pall,

The failings mortal weakness brings,

We would not, where we might, recall,

But pass them by for better things.

How bright and clean, how free from sin,

Would we our chronicles have spread,

When other hands shall write them in

The sacred records of the dead.

All this – and this is but a part, –

As Malachi of old discerned,

Elijah came, and heart to heart

Fathers and children have been turned.

And now, in temples of the Lord

Vicarious work the Saints pursue,

And still in other books record

The saving covenant anew.

1919