Editorial July 20, 1968 Issue

You Pray with Your Life

William Milford Correll

In the history of mankind prayer has been conceived of in many ways—from the automatic prayer wheel of the Tibetan to the prolonged night vigil in the Garden of Gethsemane. To many people, to pray simply means to say a few words or repeat a few phrases in a solemn or reverent attitude. Very evidently Christ Jesus had a different concept of prayer. At their request he gave his disciples one brief prayer outlined in words, but his teachings as a whole indicate that one prays with his life rather than with his words.

If one properly conceives the purpose of prayer, he will be less liable to misinterpret the method and fall into a ritual. The purpose of prayer is to commune with God, to be guided by infinite Spirit, or divine Love. It is to conform to the direction of Principle, to harmonize with divine intelligence, to feel the presence of the Father-Mother God. Certainly one does not accomplish this through ceremony, through mere repetition, or through ritualistic method. It can be accomplished only through deep desire reflected in one's daily study, in an earnest effort to live a Christian life, in one's daily attitude toward God and toward one's fellowmen. The daily and hourly attitude of Christian Scientists is outlined in Mary Baker Eddy's words in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "They bow before Christ, Truth, to receive more of his reappearing and silently to commune with the divine Principle, Love." Science and Health, p. 35;

It is only as one sees the deep, transforming effect of this prayer on one's thinking and living that he can understand how the Christian Scientist depends upon prayer for healing and for the meeting of all his human needs. When we perceive that human experience is the expression of human thinking, then that which forms and molds human thinking is understood to have a direct and determining effect upon one's life, both physically and morally.

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