Editorial October 23, 1965 Issue

The Power of Spiritual Love

Helen Wood Bauman

Without love, life would be colorless and meaningless. But love must be understood if it is to manifest its full possibilities of power and satisfaction. Christ Jesus had a scientific understanding of love that healed the sick, broke the mesmeric grasp of sin, restored sight to the blind, and brought the dead back to their grieving families. Here was Christian love exhibited as it should be universally practiced.

The Master's words to his disciples (John 13:34), "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another," pointed to a love that is higher than the personal possessiveness or human preference that the world generally calls love.

The Christian Scientist knows that he must gauge the spiritual degree of his love by the power he expresses in doing compassionate works of healing. Mary Baker Eddy practiced this impersonal, powerful kind of love. She says in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 8), "Scientific Christianity works out the rule of spiritual love; it makes man active, it prompts perpetual goodness, for the ego, or I, goes to the Father, whereby man is Godlike." A little later she adds, "Spiritual love makes man conscious that God is his Father, and the consciousness of God as Love gives man power with untold furtherance."