"Cheerful feasts"

Violet Ker Seymer

Every Sunday service in the Christian Science church offers a glorious opportunity for healing. Because of this it also presents, in belief, a temptation to allow the deterring suggestions of the so-called carnal mind to divert one's thoughts from the spiritual to the material, from the truly valuable to the pitiably valueless. Throughout the precious interval preceding the service, every Christian Scientist needs to exercise protection lest his thoughts stray and even his tongue prattle to his neighbor of trivialities. The disturbance caused by whispered conversations carried on before the service would certainly not be occasioned intentionally, but thoughtlessly. Nevertheless this is one of error's ways of preventing quiet mental preparation, which is so much needed in order that the full fruitage of the service, desired by all and due to all, may be enjoyed.

"He sent his word, and healed them." The power of Spirit is present to heal through the inspired word; and it is safe to assume that at least one individual must have come to the service that day — possibly with much difficulty — in order to obtain some urgently needed comfort and healing. Shall not our consecrated thought help him to find it during that hour? It is not the sound of the Readers' voices that heals, through the hearing of the ear; it is the spiritual meaning of the message which heals and redeems, as it penetrates the consciousness of those present. Properly utilized, the interval before the service enables one to realize the potency of right ideas and the receptivity of the congregation assembled to hear them. The true Light is present "which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Do we expect enough fruitage from the public reading of the Lesson-Sermon found in the Christian Science Quarterly, "a lesson," our Leader states (Church Manual, Art. III, Sect. 1), "on which the prosperity of Christian Science largely depends"?

This one hour of the Sunday services has an especially sacred purpose. Did not Christ Jesus, in his hour of acute need, say to his slumbering disciples who were lulled to sleep by the mesmerism of the physical senses just when he most needed their support, "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" As each student of Christian Science present strives to reflect purity and peace, the sick may depart healed, the sinner be cleansed of his besetting sin, the sorrowing set free; the unemployed may be inspired to find his work, and breaches of friendship may be drawn together in that selfsame hour.

Zechariah, referring to the true fast, namely, abstention from evil in thought, word, and deed, refers to "cheerful feasts." Then, in order to multiply this good cheer, shall not each one of us determine to leave sadness, personal problems, behind us, in order that we may be sure to contribute our share to the gladness of all present at our "cheerful feasts"? Shall we not silence rankling criticism, and lay on the altar any sense of enmity or anxiety? All discord is unreal, and we have come to the service to imbibe and reflect the healing reality. The unreal load, whatever it may be, can be lifted from all hearts everywhere.

A helpful contribution each one should make to the joy of the service is the singing of every hymn to the best of his ability. Sometimes one is tempted to sing aloud only one's favorite hymns, in which case there might be, on occasions, but a thin chorus. Another way of showing our respect for these "cheerful feasts" is by refraining from arriving at the last moment, or even under cover of the congregation standing during the first hymn. If each one of us should do this, what would become of the interval for preparation? "The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord." Both one's arrival and departure should be sanctified with quietness, expectancy of healing, and gratitude.

Sometimes the tempter takes the form of somnolence. Then we should claim the right and ability to listen for the meaning of the Lesson-Sermon with spiritual sense, knowing that spiritual sense is out of reach of all the mesmeric arguments of drowsiness and inattention. Divine Mind is omnipresent, omniactive, intelligently reflected, and "spiritual sense," Mrs. Eddy tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 209), "is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God."

Of old the children of Israel partook of the passover with loins girded, feet shod, staff in hand, and they ate in haste. All this denotes action, eagerness, obedience, mental alertness. Is not every Christian Science service a passover through which those present may advance on their journey from sense to Soul? Speaking of the Lord's passover in the upper chamber with his disciples, our Leader writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 156), "In obedience to this command may these communicants come with the upper chambers of thought prepared for the reception of Truth—with hope, faith, and love ready to partake of the bread that cometh down from heaven, and to 'drink of his blood' — to receive into their affections and lives the inspiration which giveth victory over sin, disease, and death." Violet Ker Seymer

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