Christian Scientists sometimes receive requests for healing through prayer from patients hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. And even when the request is from someone closer, healing may occur without the patient's being physically present with the healer. How are such healings accomplished?
True spiritual healing always depends on the presence of God. Divine Spirit is present everywhere at all times; it is infinite—never confined within limits. What, then, is the role of the spiritual healer? Is he or she a human intermediary —a go between—somehow making a connection between God and man? No. That is exactly what the healer is not. God is ever present, and His reflection, man, can never be separate from Him.
Take Christ Jesus' healing of the nobleman's son,See John 4:46-53. for example. The boy was gravely ill. When the desperate father heard that Jesus was in Cana of Galilee, he went there from his home in Capernaum (a distance of about twenty miles) and begged Jesus to come heal his son, who, the Bible tells us, was "at the point of death." But Jesus did not go.
He did something much more immediate than rush off to Capernaum. He rebuked the belief that his presence was needed to save the boy. But he treated the nobleman with compassion, reassuring him and saying, "Go thy way; thy son liveth." The father believed Jesus and started home again. On the way his servants met him and told him that his son was alive and well; this recovery had occurred the previous day, "at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth."
The recognition, inherent in Christ, Truth, of man as the reflection of ever-present Love healed the sick then, as it does now, regardless of personal contact—or lack of it—between practitioner and patient. The divine Mind, which Christ Jesus proved to be his only Mind, is the Life of man. This divine Mind is as present today as it was in Jesus' day, as Christian Science explains.
The role of the Christian Science healer is to pray. This prayer, or spiritual treatment, requires us to acknowledge the presence of the Mind of Christ, in which there is no sin or disease, as the only Mind and to yield to this Mind. As Paul put it, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."Phil. 2:5. This involves casting sin and disease out of consciousness.
It may be of interest to note here that the term absent treatment does not appear in Mrs. Eddy's writings. The term is sometimes used by Christian Scientists to designate prayerful treatment given when the patient is not present with the practitioner. Whenever Christian Science treatment is given, however—that is, whenever the practitioner prays as requested —the treatment is actually "present," because the Mind upon which it depends is present. In a paragraph with the marginal heading "Absent patients" Mrs. Eddy explains: "Science can heal the sick, who are absent from their healers, as well as those present, since space is no obstacle to Mind. Immortal Mind heals what eye hath not seen; but the spiritual capacity to apprehend thought and to heal by the Truth-power, is won only as man is found, not in self-righteousness, but reflecting the divine nature."Science and Health, p. 179.
To assume that the human personality could be a necessary instrument to unite man to God would be an error of great magnitude, a denial of the basic premise from which Christian Science healing is successfully practiced: namely, that God and man are one, because man is spiritually the reflection, or expression, of God. It is the action of truth, revealing this fact in human consciousness, that regenerates individual thought and thereby heals the body. The affection of the healer is indeed needed and is felt by the patient through the tender encouragement expressed, whether by correspondence, by telephone, or in person. But it does not unite the patient to God. It simply reflects the divine Love that is already with him.
Man in God's image, divine Love's own expression, dwells in the divine Mind, but sin, disease, and death do not dwell there. It is in reflecting this Mind, the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus," that we find man as he really is—spiritual and perfect, sinless, whole, and eternal—rather than a physical mortal, subject to limitation, discord, and mortality.
Whether your patient is a child in your arms whom you comfort in the night, or a stranger many miles away whom you know only by reason of a phone call for help, it will always be where you dwell spiritually, not physically, that will determine the healing effect of your prayer. This is where the yielding to God's divine law comes in and the healing commences.
The affection of the healer is indeed needed
and is felt by the patient through the tender
encouragement expressed. But it does not unite
the patient to God. It simply reflects the divine
Love that is already with him.
The human mind, to be sure, does not find man reflecting the divine nature. Much to the contrary, the human mind, unredeemed by Truth, generally concedes the reality of sin and disease. Fear, sin, self-doubt, self-righteousness, seem to hold sway over human consciousness. But do they really have more power than God and His Christ? Do they have any power at all? Can they hold back the healing power of Truth and Love? No! The human mind cannot overpower the Christ; rather it is Christ that redeems the human mind.
The human mind has no more power to separate man from God than it has to unite man to Him. But it seems to, until we repent of the belief that it can. And to repent means to change radically. We need to exchange mortal mind—the fictitious matter-based view of existence, with all its attendant discords—for real Mind, God, where harmony reigns. Jesus instructed, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel."Mark 1:15.
Disease, of course, is not always associated with sin, in the usual sense of that word. Much physical suffering springs from the general belief that life and intelligence are in matter, whereas actually they are in Spirit, the one creator. But any belief in the reality and power of matter departs from an understanding of one God, one Mind, and needs to be repented of. We read in Acts, "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord."Acts 3:19.
If we have twinges of fear, self-doubt, or guilt, or any thought that something in the human mind or character might be able to hold back the healing power of the Christ, we can think of the sinful woman, later identified with Mary Magdalene, who approached Christ Jesus and was forgiven for her sins.See Luke 7:36-50. Mrs. Eddy opens the chapter "Christian Science Practice" in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, with an enlightening discussion of the mental qualities of contrition and forgiveness illustrated by this Biblical account as it relates alike to the receptivity of practitioner and patient to the healing Christ. Jesus' love of the innate godliness of man, untouched by sin, must have been an irresistible attraction for the woman. Weary of sin and longing for the purity she thought she had lost, no wonder she was drawn to the Master's expression of pure affection— that Christly love which was, and is, ready to wipe sin and disease from the slate of the penitent heart.
I remember an occasion one Christmas season. The telephone was ringing when I came home, dragging myself in the door, feeling that I was coming down with influenza after an unsuccessful and exhausting shopping trip. I picked up the telephone—with an unpleasant experience with a store clerk still lingering in my thought and my children calling for my attention—and heard the caller say, "Will you please pray for me? I'm feeling quite sick."
Isn't it wonderful that we can pray at times like these? The caller was seeking to feel and express the love of Christ. And I certainly was ready for something beyond myself! With a deep sense of love for God and the one who was asking for help, I turned immediately to prayer. Taking refuge in the modest spiritual understanding I had been gaining from my study of Christian Science, I cared for my family and prayed for the caller.
As I repented—changed my thought from the basis of matter to Mind—I was able to master the false beliefs of sin and disease that were claiming to influence my thought, and so to let Truth uncover and destroy the errors claiming to dominate the patient's thought. With Christ, Truth, active in my consciousness, I found annoyance giving way to affectionate forgiveness of the store clerk, who, I now realized, might also have had a frustrating day. And because God's forgiveness coincides with spiritual understanding, repentance, and affection for our fellowman, my thought was spiritually refreshed. I felt the presence of divine Love governing man. All feelings of weariness and illness left. I was healed right then. And so was the patient who had called.
Clearly, the distance between us couldn't keep either of us from experiencing the truth of Mrs. Eddy's statement: "If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like dew before the morning sunshine. If the Scientist has enough Christly affection to win his own pardon, and such commendation as the Magdalen gained from Jesus, then he is Christian enough to practise scientifically and deal with his patients compassionately; and the result will correspond with the spiritual intent."Science and Health, p. 365.
The heavenly, divine consciousness is here; God is All. So, can we not, for the benefit of the one who needs to feel God's immediate care, repent and believe the gospel—quickly turn from the human consciousness to the divine and accept God's mercy? Then we will find man reflecting the divine nature, one in being with God.
And God will bless both practitioner and patient with healing!
