Christian Science shows that prayer is a reaching out of the heart toward a better sense of existence, one free from all uneasiness, and that it can also fulfill this desire of the heart, thanks to the power which puts prayer into action. What is this power, and where does it come from? Jesus exercised it better than anyone else. The subject is illuminated by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 496): "Hold perpetually this thought,—that it is the spiritual idea, the Holy Ghost and Christ, which enables you to demonstrate, with scientific certainty, the rule of healing, based upon its divine Principle, Love, underlying, overlying, and encompassing all true being."
The power which makes prayer effective is the Christ, and this Christ-power is of God. This power is therefore eternal, ever present, available to everyone everywhere on but one condition, namely that whoever wishes to avail himself of it embody in some measure Christlike qualities and the Christ-spirit. Christ is the Way, and there is no other way, for Christ is the sum of the divine expression of God, spiritually illumining human consciousness.
Mrs. Eddy saw in the Christ the illustration of the coincidence of the human with the divine. Then prayer is the active realization of such coincidence, bringing one's being into perfect obedience to the creator's intentions.
