Editorial March 1, 1930 Issue

"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.

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Divine Healing
March 1, 1930
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