I'LL NEVER FORGET MY FIRST CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SERVICE when the subject of the Lesson-Sermon Found in the Christian Science Quarterly. for the week was "Sacrament." Having taken communion many, many times in other churches—that is, having drunk from a chalice of wine and received a wafer at the altar rail—all to commemorate Jesus' instructions at the last supper to drink of his blood and to eat of his body, I was completely unprepared for the simple but profound invitation from the Readers to join the congregation in kneeling at our own seats to pray in individual communion with God. I mark that communion prayer—that precious holy sacrament, which silently and privately affirmed my allegiance to Christ Jesus' mission and teaching—as a watershed moment in my spiritual growth. I felt inspired and humbled to experience such immediate closeness to God. Never before had I realized what it meant to actually be in communion with—to commune with—my heavenly Father-Mother in such a direct and powerful way. I realized at that moment my inseparability from my Creator as I never had in any outward ritual.
This month's Journal explores several concepts in the Christian tradition, including communion, through the lens of what two essential books have to say—the Holy Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. These two books serve as the pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist, and, just as church members in all denominations everywhere seek out their pastors for solace and direction, so Christian Scientists also learn to go to our pastor for guidance, illumination, and inspiration. We hope you'll find inspiration, too, as you learn more of what these two books say about the spiritual significance of some of the most essential concepts in Christianity.
