Article August 28, 1943 Issue

Prayer

KATHERINE PUFFER

The chapter on Prayer in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy is revolutionary and reformative. Its simplicity, sublimity, and purity far transcend any former teaching regarding prayer since the Lord's Prayer was given to Christ Jesus' disciples. The effect of Jesus' prayers far outstripped anything the disciples had heretofore known. They saw the sick healed, the blind restored to sight, the tempest stilled, and the multitude fed. No wonder they implored him, "Lord, teach us to pray." Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 16), "Our Master said, 'After this manner therefore pray ye," and then he gave that prayer which covers all human needs." Do we fully realize that no matter what the problem, how great the appearance of danger, how desperate the human need, there is a complete answer to be found in the Lord's Prayer? The first statement. "Our Father which art in heaven," excludes all but God the Father-Mother of us all, and the last statement conveys the triumphantly adoring recognition of His power and glory. The all-inclusiveness of God, good, is the all-exclusiveness of evil's claim to presence and power.

The epitome of prayer is found expressed in the first sentence of Mrs. Eddy's chapter on Prayer. It reads (ibid., p. 1), "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God.—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love."

Absolute faith, spiritual understanding, unselfed love! These three essentials revolutionize one's attitude toward prayer, lifting it from the realm of petition, supplication, or intercession for God's pardon into the sublimity, grandeur, and peace of kindling desire, aroused hope, and unvoiced acknowledgment of God, good. The recognition that God is infinite Love, and man the reflection of Love, is the basis of true prayer. Discovering that good is infinite, and that man is already the possessor of all that God has to give, brings results. Such prayer cannot be hindered by the tempting influence of vanity, self-righteousness, or self-glorification.

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