ONE BRIGHT MORNING many years ago, I awoke to learn from my dad of a quick healing that my mom had experienced, the evening before. One moment she had been in extreme pain with an internal disorder and the next moment she was suddenly well and free. After profusely thanking the practitioner who had prayed for my mom, my dad asked the practitioner how she had prayed. She said she had prayed with a statement by Mary Baker Eddy from Science and Health, "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" (p. 496).
As a young girl at the time, I asked myself just what the practitioner saw in those words that resulted in an instantaneous healing. How wonderful, I thought, to be able to heal with such certainty! Since then, I've continued to ponder that sentence, getting fresh insight into how and why we can heal with scientific certainty. To understand it better, let's take a closer look at Mrs. Eddy's statement. First, she tells us to hold thought to "the spiritual idea." What is "the spiritual idea"? I think the explanation is twofold—the Holy Ghost and the Christ.
The Christ is that divine consciousness that shows us the truth of our spiritual nature, perfection, and substance. It's like a continually unfolding blueprint of our spiritual nature and identity. The Christ inwardly speaks to us of our oneness with God. The Christ is the holiness that animates our spiritual being and is really the source of our prayerful thought. Mrs. Eddy stated, "The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea,—perfect God and perfect man,—as the basis of thought and demonstration" (Science and Health p. 259).
