Jesus' disciples once asked him to teach them to pray. The result of this request is the Lord's Prayer, which today gives all Christian churches a bond of unity. Spiritual understanding of the truth it contains enabled Jesus and his followers to heal the sick and reform the sinner, and Christian Scientists throughout the world are proving that the prayer has lost none of its healing efficacy.
In all Churches of Christ, Scientist, the repetition of the Lord's Prayer at each service is preceded by a period of silent prayer. Accepting the invitation of the First Reader to unite in that holy period of silence, each member of the congregation has the opportunity to join with all others in communing with God, divine Mind. James said (4:8), "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you." The power of prayer is manifested only as one draws nigh to God, or in other words, establishes his oneness, or unity, with God, good. The more each one individually thus unites with the one Mind, recognizes the almightiness of God and man's inseparability from Him, the more effective are his affirmations of Truth. In prayer one must dissociate himself from materiality and mortal personality, from pressing problems of the day, and establish his inseparability from God.
Each one present at a service in a Christian Science church has the right to expect healings to take place. The healing effect follows, not because those present are praying personally one for another, but because the congregation is acknowledging and establishing a recognition of divine oneness with God and the consciousness of the perfection of God and of all His spiritual ideas. As members of the congregation individually achieve a spiritual sense of unity with God in the period devoted to silent prayer, an unlimited, mighty spiritual force is evidenced in human consciousness. All who truly commune with God know that their prayer is one with the prayers of all others who likewise accomplish that spiritual oneness. All who participate in this unison of prayer are reciprocally blessed, and that blessing extends naturally and effortlessly to all mankind.
