"Lord, teach us to pray"

EUGENIE PAUL JEFFERSON

THE plea of the disciples to be taught of their Master the right concept of prayer is echoed by the beginner in the study of Christian Science. Before the great fact of an infinite, incorporeal God had been fully accepted, and the understanding of heaven as an eternal condition of spiritual harmony had been attained, there had appeared to one seeker after Truth a feeling that something vital had been taken away from prayer. This seeming loss was afterwards proved to be gain, for with the giving up of the limited concept of God,—a God who, seated upon a great white throne in a material heaven whose streets were paved with gold, judged His children and forgave or punished, blessed or condemned, according to His will,—came the childlike receptivity to the Christian Science teaching of God as infinite good.

Through the study of the chapter on Prayer in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science, the former prayer of beseeching gave place to the prayer of understanding, yea, of gratitude, and the young student rejoiced in the comprehension of the words spoken to the elder son when the prodigal returned to his father's house, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." All good has been the full heritage of the real man forever. Unlike the heir to material possessions, who inherits only his share, each son of the heavenly Father inherits all. Can we ask for more?

To obtain this understanding of prayer, Mrs. Eddy counseled the students of Christian Science to search the Scriptures and ponder upon their message, even as the virgin mother pondered the sweet secret of the angel vision. We do not have to plead to have the loving promises of the Bible fulfilled, but we need to understand the conditions of their fulfillment. Many of the promises have conditions attached to them, and only as we seek in prayer and knock at the heavenly door of understanding, can the fulfillment be demonstrated. Writing upon the subject of prayer, Henry Drummond says, "Men pray for things which they are quite unable to receive, or altogether unwilling to pay the price for."

The great Teacher of humanity in his three years' work among men gives us many helpful examples of the way in which he used the means of prayer to accomplish his mission. At the tomb of Lazarus his prayer was one of thankfulness. He did not ask to have the dead raised to life; he lifted up his eyes and thanked God that his prayer was heard. The great Master looked above and beyond the material evidence of death to the divine evidence of Life as God, ever present and eternal. Jesus did not need the proof given by the resurrection of Lazarus that his prayer was heard and answered. His gratitude proved his understanding that the demonstration was made even before those who stood about the tomb received the material evidence.

The disciples whose thoughts had been changed by his teachings from a material to the spiritual concept of Life, felt the need of knowing how to pray. Upon a certain occasion when Jesus himself was at prayer, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." Then followed the prayer of prayers, of which the theologian Schaff said, "It is the most comprehensive of all forms of devotion." The scientific interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, as given by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health, may be said to have removed any possibility of this prayer losing for the Christian Scientist its vital breath; as our Leader says on page 16 of Science and Health: "The highest prayer is not one of faith merely; it is demonstration. Such prayer heals sickness, and must destroy sin and death. It distinguishes between Truth that is sinless and the falsity of sinful sense."

Among the prayers of Jesus which are recorded, including the model prayer referred to above, is the prayer of fervent thanksgiving; the petition for strength to submit the human will to the divine; the prayer on the cross for the forgiveness of his enemies; and that which might be called the prayer of glorification, which includes the entire seventeenth chapter of John, and was made by the Master just before his betrayal by his false disciple Judas. This prayer brought comfort and assurance to the faithful followers of Jesus, to whom he declared that he had "overcome the world." The Master prayed, and it was indeed a prayer of glorification. His real Gethsemane was past. There was no further need to ask for strength to pass through the great ordeal which was to prove to the world that human blood could be shed and yet the everlasting life of man remain untouched.

The glory of Jesus of Nazareth began before the ascension. There was no reproach, no resentment. When Judas departed into the night after having received the sop which marked him as the betrayer, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of man glorified." Through his triumph over death and the grave, Jesus caused these experiences to serve as an everlasting proof to mankind that the understanding of Life is the master of the belief in death. Through the prayer of understanding every bitter experience of mortal life can be made to serve rather than to master. Ingratitude, hate, all sin and disease afford opportunities for demonstrating God's all-power, and one may through his overcoming prove himself to be master of all that is unlike good.

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