Article July 31, 1976 Issue

What Are We Praying For?

DONALD M. SWINNEY

God, Spirit, is All-in-all. Consequently, all true substance is Spirit. Spirit and its spiritual creation is the somethingness of all real being. Matter is unreal. Materiality counterfeits spirituality but possesses of itself no truth, no real existence. Matter is an illusion, nothingness.

These absolute truths of Christian Science determine the proper approach to prayer. If our object is merely to attain a material thing or condition, we are missing the full potential of prayer. On the other hand, when we seek the spiritual, when we pray for the understanding of God's allness and the nothingness of matter, we are assuredly praying from an effective basis.

Health, harmony, right activity, love, joy, supply, exist in perfect Spirit and are real. They are qualities of divine Mind and can never be found outside all-inclusive Mind. When the truth of health, harmony, supply, unfolds in our thought, the somethingness of Spirit and the nothingness of matter become apparent, and healing occurs. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health: "When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Science, the nothingness of matter is recognized. Where the spirit of God is, and there is no place where God is not, evil becomes nothing,—the opposite of the something of Spirit." Science and Health, p. 480;

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