Article July 27, 1968 Issue

The Healing Mission of the Church

MADELINE KEENE WOOD

Usually a new way of life is being sought when an individual comes to Christian Science for healing. There may be a deep desire to understand God and man's inseparable relationship to Him, or the need may be for the healing of disease or of sin. Oftentimes there is a longing in the human heart for release from fear and loneliness. Christian Science opens the door to healing, and it is the mission of the Church of Christ, Scientist, to assist the individual in his search for healing.

One might ask how healings can come about from a church service. One answer is that they come through prayer. Prayer, as understood in Christian Science, is spiritual communion with the Father. It is often affirmation, and it reaches the zenith of demonstration through the recognition of what God has already done for man. Prayer includes knowing that man is spiritual because man reflects and expresses the qualities of the Father-Mother God. Man's inseparable relationship to the Father makes him the constant recipient and expression of all good. The understanding of the ever-presence of all good is man's divine inheritance. Prayer reveals the spiritual fact to the receptive thought.

The power of spiritual thought can never be overestimated, and it has far-reaching results. As each church member prays impersonally for the church service, the receptive thought is uplifted and blessed. In the textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, we read, "In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings, we must deny sin and plead God's allness." Science and Health, p. 15; Christian Science teaches one to begin with himself to weed out the errors of material sense arguing to his individual consciousness. If this work is faithfully done, healings are bound to occur. There is no substitute for prayer.

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