Just before Christ Jesus gave that incomparable prayer which we call the Lord's Prayer, he said, "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions,... for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him." By this we know that those who use the Lord's Prayer should use it with spiritual understanding, for thus they will realize great good from it.
Mary Baker Eddy makes a significant statement about the Lord's Prayer. She says that it "covers all human needs" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 16), and a little farther on adds, "Only as we rise above all material sensuousness and sin, can we reach the heaven-born aspiration and spiritual consciousness, which is indicated in the Lord's Prayer and which instantaneously heals the sick." This statement leads to the inevitable conclusion that the Lord's Prayer, rightly understood, contains the exact rule for all healing, no matter whether the difficulty seems to be of little consequence or whether it seems to be very big. In reality there are no big errors or little errors; in true being there is no error. If, then, this sublime prayer is used with inspiration, it must be a perfect Christian Science treatment. Its spiritual meaning is an unfailing guide for healing. And instantaneous healing results from rising above material sense to the spiritual consciousness which is indicated in this prayer.
We may well be impressed by the fact that in this prayer one's thought is immediately turned to God. Beginning with God, it thus establishes the absolute truth as a basis for thought and action. Material sense starts with matter, and reasons from this false basis, rather than from divine Principle. "Deducing one's conclusions as to man from imperfection instead of perfection," Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, pp. 259, 260), "one can no more arrive at the true conception or understanding of man, and make himself like it, than the sculptor can perfect his outlines from an imperfect model."
