Each year at the Christmas season the story of the Nativity is told and retold. It is one of the best-loved themes throughout the Christian world, and the Virgin-mother, in the Gospel according to Luke, is quoted as saying (1: 46,47): "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

In "Miscellaneous Writings," Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and founder of Christian Science, tells us (p. 75), "Mary's exclamation, 'My soul doth magnify the Lord," is rendered in Science, 'My spiritual sense doth magnify the Lord.'" And she goes on to say, "It was evidently an illuminated sense through which she discovered the spiritual origin of man." In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 209), "Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God." It is only through the exercise of spiritual sense that we glimpse the true relationship of God and man.

The great desire of the earnest student of Christian Science and the necessary requirement for healing and progress constitute an ever-increasing expression of spiritual sense. The great question is how to manifest more and more of it. The answer is simple when the above references are studied, "Magnify the Lord."

One definition of the word "magnify" includes the meanings, "To make greater; to enlarge." Now it is impossible to make God greater than He already is, but by exalting and glorifying Him we can increase our understanding of Him. We do this by magnifying His qualities. These qualities become clearer and more real upon better acquaintance with God. We exalt Him by recognizing His goodness and glory; by knowing and expressing His glory in every detail of our lives and by seeing it in all whom we meet; by looking for it and being grateful for it. Through this means we develop our spiritual sense, and it strengthens with use.

The Psalmist puts it this way: "Bless the Lord. O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases" (Ps.103:1-3). We may sometimes be confronted with an unpleasant picture, a diseased condition, an accident, or an unattractive personality. If so, we should refuse to admit that any one of these is real. We should know that God never made or permitted such a condition to exist, because His goodness, His love, and His omnipotence preclude error of all kinds. By so working, we magnify God and do a great service to mankind.

A young girl telephoned her mother one day from her place of business to ask for some help in Christian Science. She stated that one of her eyes had become inflamed, and there was much comment about it among her fellow workers. She was on her way to a conference with the manager and did not want to present any such evidence.

The Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly for that week was "Christ Jesus," and some of the passages quoted above had been included. The mother had pondered them each day, and when this call for help came she humbly prayed for a clearer glimpse of the perception that Mary must have had. Instantly the words came, "Magnify the Lord," and a moment's illumination of God's perfection, now and forever, filled her consciousness.

She sat quietly letting gratitude for God flow into her thinking gratitude that God is, that He is ever present and all powerful, that His child is never separated from Him, that all creation reflects His perfection. No specific work other than this was done for the daughter. In fact, the false belief was wiped from her thought. In less than thirty minutes the telephone rang again. This time the cheery words were: "Thanks a lot. Everything is all right."

That evening when mother and daughter were reviewing the experience, the young girl explained that before she placed the call she examined her thinking to be sure that she was not resisting the truth, that she was willing to admit that the healing could come instantly, that she was fully accepting the immediacy of Christian Science help. And the mother told of the part gratitude had played in the quick results. Error cannot remain when the one asking for help is putting up no barriers to that help and when the thought of the one doing the work is filled with the glory of God.

The rightness of everything is seen when our spiritual senses are employed rather than the five material senses. Christian Science tells us that the Virgin-mother recognized infinite Being as Spirit. It was her spiritual sense which discerned this fact, and the understanding of it enabled her to be the mother of one who was to demonstrate the truth of being so completely that his words and works have remained beacons throughout the centuries.

Man is the reflection of divine Being. We identify being by our expression of it, and through spiritual perception come to recognize that it is the expression of God. Here truly do we magnify the Lord. Such magnification brings great blessings, for it reveals being as safe above the claims of mortality.

Paul wrote (I Cor. 6:20), "Glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." In order to glorify God in our bodies, we must become aware of and be grateful for the qualities with which God has endowed us and refuse to bear witness to anything else. If someone very dear to us had given us a precious gift, we would treasure it and the thought which impelled it. Should we not honor our gift of spirituality in the same way? It is not something we ourselves have created; it is an impartation of God, bestowed upon us by our heavenly Father.

Included in God's impartations are gifts, such as health, strength, and activity. Those are not something we possess or do not possess according to chance, material conditions, or hereditary influences. They are permanently, constantly, bestowed upon us, as are all the attributes of God. They are to be recognized rather than sought; claimed rather than developed.

We read in Science and Health (p. 414), "Keep in mind the verity of being,—that man is the image and likeness of God, in whom all being is painless and permanent." In painless and permanent being there can be no lack of health or bad health. In Christian Science we understand health to be absolute, always expressing strength and activity; but such understanding comes only through spiritual perception. Mortal mind would try to hide the truth from us, but the illumination which spiritual insight brings, like a powerful spotlight thrown upon an object in the dark, reveals the truth of being.

A life devoted to magnifying the Lord grows and expands in beauty and splendor. As we pray the great Lord's Prayer, closing with the lines (Matt. 6:13), "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever," we come to find that kingdom unfolding to us, that power working for us, and that glory shining in us.