Article April 27, 2020 Issue

Finding immunity from sickness

Michelle Boccanfuso Nanouche

First appeared as a Web Original on March 12, 2020

I know someone who used to schedule his sick days in advance because he expected to catch some type of illness every year about the same time. Then he learned about Christian Science, and his experience completely changed. He soon noticed that he didn’t need to take sick days with regularity anymore. And on the rare occasions that he did fall ill, he returned to work in good shape much more quickly than in the past. What made the difference?

Christian Science brings out what Jesus taught of the intersection between one’s spirituality—or one’s relation to the Divine—and practical daily experience, bringing health and healing. Jesus’ understanding of the nature of God and God’s children as good and pure empowered him to not only safely come into contact with those suffering from highly contagious conditions, but actually heal them. And he taught that each of us could follow in the path he pointed out, too.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science and a consecrated follower of Jesus’ teachings, explained that contagion is fundamentally mental in nature rather than physical, and is engendered by fear. “Many a hopeless case of disease,” she wrote, “is induced by a single post mortem examination,—not from infection nor from contact with material virus, but from the fear of the disease and from the image brought before the mind; it is a mental state, which is afterwards outlined on the body” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 196).