Connie Coddington, Manager of Christian Science Practitioner Activities for The Mother Church, recently interviewed Elizabeth Trevithick, a Journal-listed Christian Science practitioner, on what a seeker for healing might expect when first contacting a practitioner.
What is a Christian Science practitioner? Can you explain some of what you do as a practitioner?
First off, Christian Science treatment is not a talking cure. Neither does it use any material means for healing. Christian Science practitioners are devoted Christians working to heal the sick the way Jesus healed. They come from diverse backgrounds, but all have been equipped to heal spiritually through studying the Bible and the teachings of the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, which were revealed to her by God through her deep lifetime study of the Bible.
Christ Jesus is the practitioners’ example, the one they desire above all to follow in their healing practice. They pray daily to establish in their own thought that real healing is based on an acceptance of the Bible’s description of perfect God and perfect man as the present spiritual fact (see Genesis, chapter 1). Healing does not involve the personality or charisma of the practitioner, but it does involve compassion. Someone once said, “A practitioner sings my song when I’ve forgotten the words.” I like that. The practitioner is dedicated to observing life from a single point of view: God’s.
I often begin by asking myself such questions as, Who has all the power? Where is God, our divine Mind, at this moment?
Christian Science practitioners get requests to heal not just sickness, but also discordant relationships, financial and employment problems, struggles with sin, addictions, and everything in between. In healing any of the challenges facing humanity, I often begin by asking myself such questions as, Who has all the power? Where is God, our divine Mind, at this moment? What does God know about the patient right now? The answer is always based on the all-embracing love of God: God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. He has all the power, is everywhere, and knows everything about the patient as His perfect, spiritual reflection. And only what God knows is real. This assurance enables me to trust God, Spirit, completely, and not lean on any material perceptions of the problem for its solution.
If someone calls you, emails, or texts for the first time, what might that conversation be like?
You will be talking with someone who genuinely wants to help you exchange a limited, hurting view of yourself for a calm certainty that your creator—God, infinite intelligence, divine Love-—is caring for every detail of your life. You will find your unhappy or sick view of yourself changes as your thought yields to the harmony of the divine Mind—that is, when a material view is exchanged for the spiritual truth, which Jesus said would make us free.
The practitioner’s encouraging words and prayers are based on a spiritual understanding of what Jesus taught through his incomparable healings and examples. The light Mary Baker Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures throws on Jesus’ method of healing—and the healings resulting from this spiritual enlightenment—have already convinced the practitioner that such healings are possible here and now.
What should someone new to Christian Science expect from a practitioner?
First, they will not be getting a medical diagnosis of their problem. They will not be given human or psychological advice. Problems always look material, and always look bigger than their solution, but when, through the practitioner’s understanding, the mighty power of all-knowing divine Mind pervades thought, the problem fades away.
The one seeking help can expect to be healed as his or her thought shifts from a limited, material basis to a clearer understanding of man’s true spiritual nature as the image and likeness of God. He or she will begin to experience the blessing of Christ Jesus’ insistence that good is not coming in the future, it is here, now. As he said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). This truth, registering in our consciousness, is the source of true healing.
Is prayer in Christian Science different from prayer in other denominations or belief systems?
Well, there are many different ways in which people pray. But an important point in Christian Science is that we don’t pray to inform God of our material problem and ask Him to solve it. We pray with the Psalmist, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law” (Psalms 119:18).
The Christian Scientist prays to become conscious of what God, divine Mind, knows.
In other words, the Christian Scientist prays to become conscious of what God, divine Mind, knows about the patient, which is their present perfection and unlimited potential as a spiritual idea of God. It’s a childlike submission or yielding to the spiritual truth, which is unseen by the physical senses, but is known to God. Time and again this results in healing.
So prayer in Christian Science often starts with reverently thanking God for His power, His ever-presence, and His perfect knowledge of each one of us. Just as Jesus said reverently, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30)—not one materially, but one as divine Mind and its own idea, man.
When people go to a professional for their service, they expect to pay a fee. Is there a fee involved for your service as a Christian Science practitioner?
Christian Science practitioners are independent workers, not employees of the Church of Christ, Scientist. It is their only profession; they can have no other employment, but must give their time to this singular work. So they need to charge a fee for the service they are offering. Each practitioner sets his or her fee and would usually explain it to the patient at the beginning of treatment. Like other professionals, they generally send out bills at the end of each month so there is no confusion about the process.
Can anyone really expect healing from prayers in Christian Science? How does that work?
Mrs. Eddy was a fervent student of the Bible who became convinced that inasmuch as Jesus never used material methods of healing, it must be his spiritual viewpoint that brought the healing power of God to bear upon the case. It’s my job as a Christian Science practitioner to constantly grow in my spiritual understanding of that Christianly scientific view. I do that primarily through prayer and in daily study of the words and works of Jesus and the spiritual explanations of Christian Science practice in the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
There is nothing repetitive or formulaic in this work. It is a glorious daily adventure to observe the truth making man free, as Jesus promised. It is a daily growth in understanding Life as spiritual, not material.
The Church of Christ, Scientist, has an abundant record of verified healings covering the whole range of human problems. They have been published for over a century in The Christian Science Journal, the Christian Science Sentinel, and The Herald of Christian Science. Current issues of these magazines, as well as every past issue, may be read at any Christian Science Reading Room or on JSH-Online.com. Current healings are also shared on Wednesday evenings at church testimony meetings.
What does the practitioner do after hanging up the phone or finishing an email or text message to the patient?
In further prayerful communion with God, fear of the problem is exchanged for the spiritual certainty that God is all-powerful, everywhere, and that what God knows is everything there is to know about His own idea, which is what we all are, in reality—perfect ideas of the one perfect Mind.
The practice is a glorious daily adventure to observe the truth making man free, as Jesus promised.
Science and Health describes this healing method very clearly: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick” (pp. 476–477). The Christian Science practitioner prays constantly to have the Mind of Christ—that is, to see everything from God’s spiritual point of view, and not as suggested by the physical senses.
Jesus did not respond to calls for help with psychological analysis or material reasoning of any sort. He reverently honored and simply voiced what he already understood, which was that in God’s sight the patient was already free. This is exactly the model the Christian Science practitioner is devoted to following. So after the practitioner hangs up the phone or completes the message, he continues to monitor his own thought, praying to be conscious of God’s power as present without any limitations.
Page one of Science and Health says it all: “The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love.”
You seem to have a great love for Christian Science. Could you tell me what you love most about being a Christian Science practitioner?
Jesus summed up the leading requirements of being a Christian in two points: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37, 39).
Christ’s faithful follower Mary Baker Eddy had a heart filled with compassion for hurting humanity, and she devoted herself to discovering the Principle behind Christ Jesus’ healings, because he had promised we could heal in his way, too. So her discovery of the Science of the Christ and the publication of Science and Health have enabled me to obey Jesus’ injunction to heal the sick and love my neighbor as myself. In all humility, I have to say that I feel deep gratitude every day for being able to heal in this way.
