In that incomparable compendium of true Christian ethics which our great Master, Jesus the Christ, gave to the world, the Sermon on the Mount, are set forth the qualities of thought which bring God's blessings into our lives. Such a high estimate did Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, place upon this sermon that on one occasion she wrote (Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 11), "To my sense the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday without comment and obeyed throughout the week, would be enough for Christian practice."
While we may have been familiar with the letter of the Beatitudes since childhood, we learn, through our study of Christian Science, their deeper meaning, and hence are able to apply them more practically. We understand the Science and the divine law underlying them, through which they operate and are demonstrated. Thus we find that they are not only helpful in character building, but are equally potent in healing and redemption. In fact, the healing which follows from obedience to the Beatitudes is the sign that their truths have been incorporated into our thought and lives.
What a healing and redemptive truth we have in the gracious beatitude, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God"! To see God, to know God, to understand God, to perceive His true nature, is the greatest of all blessings. The real man reflects God. All that man is, is the reflection of what God is. The real man fully expresses God; and from the human standpoint we are finding and expressing our true selfhood in proportion as we understand God. As we know God aright, we express that which is Godlike, the man of God's creating. In divine reality man is always man, God's child. But the human consciousness needs to know God as He really is, for then the true man, who reflects God, is known.
