WHEN Christ Jesus sent the twelve on a healing mission, he linked heaven with healing. He said (Matt. 10:7, 8): "As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give."
The Christian Science practitioner is one who accepts these directives and follows them in full confidence that they are capable of fulfillment. The Scientist has freely received healing through the Christ-power, and his desire is to give as freely as he has received. He has been deeply touched by the Science of being, because it has made him conscious in a measure of God's kingdom, in which the true idea of everything created exists. He has learned that the material senses are false, that matter, which they perceive, is a limited and materialistic mode of thinking, and that he can reverse the evidence of these senses by utilizing his spiritual senses, which perceive creation as God makes it. This is a process of translation, and, to the extent that the practitioner actually discerns what God has created, he is able to heal the sick and the sinning.
Mary Baker Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 25), "Science, understood, translates matter into Mind, rejects all other theories of causation, restores the spiritual and original meaning of the Scriptures, and explains the teachings and life of our Lord." A little later she adds, "It gives God's infinite meaning to mankind, healing the sick, casting out evil, and raising the spiritually dead."
Actually, the Christian Science practitioner, while devoting himself to preaching the gospel of Truth and healing troubled humanity, is transforming his own consciousness, translating matter into Mind, and proving his immortal existence in the true kingdom. Paul must have had this scientific change in thought when he counseled the Colossians to give thanks to "the Father, . . . who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son . . . who is the image of ... God" (1:12-15).
In Christ, the true idea of sonship, every identity exists in God's image; and it is the true, incorporeal identity of his patient that the practitioner brings to light. His chief objective is to spiritualize the patient's consciousness, to awaken him to the Christliness which is his divine heritage as God's child. Always the Scientist endeavors to exchange —in his own as well as in the patient's thought—the false, material concept of man for the real, spiritual concept; mortality for immortality; materiality for spirituality. By this method the pains and woes of human thought are made to disappear, for the real then occupies thought in place of the unreal.
The practice of Christian Science is a regenerative, religious ministry, not medical practice, and the practitioner's entire approach to healing is the opposite of that of the medical physician. The doctor works within the realm of the physical senses which are the instruments of the carnal mind, and he consequently depends upon wavering human belief to make his methods effective. The true metaphysician does not resort to sense methods. Mrs. Eddy says in her Message to The Mother Church for 1901 (p. 26), "The five personal senses can have only a finite sense of the infinite: therefore the metaphysician is sensual that combines matter with Spirit."
The metaphysician directs his healing efforts to lifting the patient's thought above the senses and the materialistic claims of medical power to the pure consciousness of Spirit and its power. He proves that God alone maintains health and sinlessness in man. This method of healing is not only deeply religious, but strictly scientific; it rules out the physical and temporal sense of life little by little and leaves the patient morally and spiritually improved.
To bring about a truly scientific healing is the greatest service that can be rendered anyone. While acknowledging the service given in our times by natural scientists and eagerly accepting their contributions toward the breaking down of material limitations, the world is much slower in acknowledging the spiritual benefits that are being contributed by Christian Scientists toward the elimination of limitations on the basis of Spirit's power over matter.
The practitioner realizes that his practice of Truth takes place in his consciousness rather than in material space and place. While it is advisable if possible to carry the practice of Science into large population centers, the Scientist knows that distance from such centers, the smallness of his branch Church of Christ, Scientist, or any other limiting claim of mortal mind cannot make conditions for the success and expansion of his spiritual efforts to heal.
One often hears of practitioners who have built up large and lively practices which spread over the earth even when every personal advantage in regard to practicing Truth is denied them. This success is the result of their understanding that in reality they live in the vast realm of Spirit and that the Christ, Truth, which they manifest is universal in its action. These workers let their hearts reach out compassionately to all the suffering, sorrowful, repentant people who are yearning for a higher kind of life than matter and material advancement can give them.
One by one, each false belief that confronts the practitioner must be reversed and a spiritual idea take its place regardless of where he lives or what his circumstances are. Being is subjective, and Christian Science calls for a complete discarding of mortal beliefs for immortal truths. Consciousness must be purified of all materialism until there is a perfect coincidence of the human and the divine. This is the task that confronts the Christian Science practitioner, a task that must be accompanied by a joyful sense that God is working with him.
Strength to persist, depth of devotion, tenderness, and strong determination characterize the practitioner who sees his practice as transcending the petty demands for ease in matter often thrust upon him and realizes that by his healing work he is opening God's kingdom not only to his own thought but to all mankind.
