Q: What do you do if you have a personal issue for which you need help and would like to contact a Christian Science practitioner for treatment, but you’re too embarrassed to have to tell him or her about it?
A: I am so grateful you have asked this question as it goes to the core of the Christian Science practice. It is important to have confidence that when we reach out to a Christian Science practitioner for treatment, we are turning to the power and love of Christ, Truth—the impersonal Savior—for healing. The Christ-spirit, or spirit of divine Life, Truth, and Love that Jesus expressed, is free of judgment, and is the heart and soul of Christian Science (see Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 113). We can be assured that this same spirit is present with every request one makes to the practitioner for help, and includes the quality of compassion, along with the spiritual understanding of man’s inviolate purity and innocence.
It has always encouraged me to know from biblical accounts that Christ Jesus did not live in an ivory tower, separate from the world. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus is described as a “friend” of publicans and sinners (Matthew 11:19). I just love that word friend for it highlights a very precious quality in Jesus’ relationship with those around him. There was no hierarchical barrier between Jesus and those who came to him for healing. He reached out with a compassion free of judgment to those who were lost in the mesmeric influence of the world.
