Editorial February 23, 1929 Issue

Righteous Prayer

Albert F. Gilmore

The gaining of a clear understanding of prayer is a problem for which mankind has long sought a satisfactory solution. One's views regarding prayer are based upon his concept of Deity; and, moreover, through prayer mortals gain understanding of God and recognize man's relationship to Him. Only through righteous prayer do we gain the realization of God's presence and availability to heal all our diseases, solve all our problems, and to bring us into His kingdom, where abide perfect ideas, harmonious and eternal. Prayer constitutes a vital factor in all religion and worship. In view of this, how important becomes a right understanding of prayer!

The model prayer for all Christians is the Lord's Prayer, which holds first place in all true worship. It was uttered out of the fullness of Jesus' realization of the ever-presence of God, the Father. It was the expression of a spiritualized state of consciousness, an exalted mental altitude which all Christians recognize and seek to emulate. The interpretation of the Lord's Prayer given by Mrs. Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 16, 17), reveals the depth of its meaning and thus adds to its efficacy. Thus interpreted it is both the prayer of affirmation and of desire. It implies that God's kingdom is complete, intact, perfect, and that man is spiritual, coexisting with God and coeternal with Him.

Our great need is to realize the facts of being, the truth about God and His universe, including man; and the prayer of affirmation meets this need, since it is the prayer of realization, which lifts thought above all materiality into the realm of Spirit. This is the effective prayer of which the Apostle James declared, "And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up," and as a sinner he shall be forgiven.

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