In response to the global pandemic, the Christian Science Publishing Society has created a new collection of five articles from the Christian Science periodicals. Timely and practical, this pamphlet shares valuable insights to comfort and spiritually uplift as you pray for yourself, your family and community, and the world.
Table of Contents and excerpts from each article:
1. Bringing Our Prayers to the Threat of Contagion - Kevin Graunke
Excerpt:
"'Today only! Free flu shots!'
"The bright banners snapping in the late fall breeze seemed to be effective. Lots of cars were turning in at the large chain drugstore near our home. As I drove past, it occurred to me how easy it is to assume that it's natural, even inevitable, to come down with contagious illnesses, especially during the winter.
"Taking responsibility for our health is important. For many folks, seasonal shots and prescriptions are one approach, and I certainly respect and support those who make that choice. But in my own experience, I've found that through Christian Science it's possible to consistently challenge the assumptions about getting sick, and that doing so has brought more solid and lasting health. Prayer based on a spiritual understanding of God has always been a reliable and effective way to care for my health.
"How can this kind of prayer help? In my own experience, I've seen that this prayer makes us aware of a radically different view of our lives and the world around us. This spiritual view is based on a recognition of God as divine Life—wholly good and the source of all harmony. Life being all good, causing only good, and maintaining harmony throughout its creation is therefore the source of health rather than sickness, vitality rather than vulnerability. And this fact, understood, has practical effects, such as protection from contagion. ..."
2. True Health - L. Ivimy Gwalter
Excerpt:
"A Christian Scientist had long enjoyed an almost uniform sense of good health, which he attributed to his understanding, gained through Christian Science, of God as the only Life, and which he took very much for granted; but the time came when he found it necessary to establish his sense of health on the sure foundation of Christianly scientific demonstration. The aggressive mental suggestions poured into thought: Your health has been undermined, you have lost your health, you may not recover, and so on. In blessed reassurance came the inspired words of Isaiah, 'When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.' And so it proved.
"Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 'It is as necessary for a health-illusion, as for an illusion of sickness, to be instructed out of itself into the understanding of what constitutes health; for a change in either a health-belief or a belief in sickness affects the physical condition.' A belief in health based on the illusion of health as a physical condition is no more stable or real than a belief in sickness, for both are built on the sands of human variableness and have no foundation in Truth.
"What then is health, and where is it to be found? Christian Science reveals health as a condition of Mind, of God, Spirit, not of matter. Hence scientific health is spiritual, an emanation of God. It is found in an understanding of God and exists wholly apart from the supposititious conditions of matter..."
3. Forecasts—Not The Final Word - Judith Hedrick
Excerpt:
"We may face all kinds of forecasts about our health, careers, and general well-being, as well as about the weather, economy, and government. But I've learned in Christian Science that instead of feeling bound by a forecast, we can seek in Christ 'a more sure word of prophecy,' as a light shining in the dark places of human fear, to reveal God's loving provision for all.
"A forecast is material in origin and scope, based on knowledge gained from looking at the material picture rather than to God, Spirit, who is All. A forecaster compares current physical data with patterns in the past, determines a range of possible outcomes, and chooses what seems most likely. However scientific a forecast appears, the premise is fundamentally inaccurate, because material observation and laws don't touch upon the spiritual facts of being..."
4. No Classification of Diseases - Paul Stark Seeley
Excerpt:
"Why do some phases of sin and disease often seem more tenacious and difficult to overcome than others? Is evil really able to inject more power and tenacity into cancer than into colic? That is its claim, but its claim has no law of Truth to support it.
"In a paragraph in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, under the marginal heading 'Diseases not to be classified,' Mary Baker Eddy says, 'One disease is no more real than another.' Heart trouble is no more the reality of man than hives, rheumatism than rickets, arthritis than asthma. The claim of the one evil, mortal mind, that it can classify its lying concepts, calling some mild and little-to-be-feared, and others serious and much-to-be-feared, needs to be seen as a lie about lies. But the lie of false classification is powerless to lift the lie of any disease or any sin above the dead level of the fictitious evil mind which is its origin..."
5. Nipping Disease in the Bud - Bea Roegge
Excerpt:
"Likely most everyone will agree that disease is abnormal and not the natural condition of the body. And most people will also agree that disease can be prevented, though we may differ widely as to the methods of prevention.
"Those who rely exclusively on prayer as taught in Christian Science to prevent the development of disease in the body know that they have to be alert to what they allow into consciousness. They realize that disease or any inharmony often comes as a mental suggestion. And that a suggestion does not require overt argument to gain admission but often easily slips into thought and gets accepted unnoticed. Suggestions concerning our physical welfare are constantly pouring into thought. Some of these are deliberately sent forth to interfere with the saving and healing mission of Christian Science. Others are conclusions drawn from medical theories and practices, or just plain superstition. Regardless of their source, such suggestions await an unwitting acceptance.
"It takes mental alertness to not be influenced by these suggestions..."