Christian Healing, No Passing Fad

CERTAIN words become popular, like a fad. These words become woven into daily conversation. The word healing is becoming a catch phrase in popular discussion today. Look in almost any newspaper over several days and you'll find healing used to describe many human needs. Healing has become modern jargon.There's something hopeful in healing's becoming so commonly thought and talked about. Healing is central to Christian Science; healing was certainly central to Christ Jesus and his early followers. Healing is what awakened a world to Mary Baker Eddy's discovery that Christian healing is not something rel-egated to the past. Speaking of scientific Christian healing, the Founder of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy, observes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "To-day the healing power of Truth is widely demonstrated as an immanent, eternal Science, instead of a phenomenal exhibition. Yet if healing is not to become simply one more example of a word or concept that had a certain currency in popular usage, the conditions that enable deep, effective, Christian healing to happen must be explored and understood. Scientific Christian healing, as understood by its Discoverer, Mrs. Eddy, was not an occasional, fortuitous occurrence. Like the Apostle Paul, Mrs. Eddy saw Christ Jesus' Christianity as something that would bring into existence a higher humanhood witnessing to the divinity of Christ--present here and now in each individual. This thoroughly transforming spirituality heals sickness as it reveals what man really is as the spiritual child of God. Such healing brings into view our real nature as wholly spiri tual, reflecting the creator in all His goodness, tenderness, and sinlessness. Thus, as critical as healing is to advancing mankind's knowledge of God's law, even more critical is an understanding of what genuine spirituality is and how it enters into our daily life. Without this practical and inward effect, Mrs. Eddy realized that Christian healing would be lost again because its basis would not be understood. We might say that while healing is all-important to Christianity, understanding how such healing is generated is crucial. Mrs. Eddy longed to find people who would go beyond intellectual curiosity in regard to physical healing through nonmaterial means and actually grasp the fundamental Christian and spiritual purpose and cause of Christian Science healing. She realized that without this understanding of the divine Principle of healing, healing itself would remain only a "phenomenal exhibition and not a Science, regenerating humankind. The amazing simplicity of Christianly scientific healing is evidenced in the fact that its basic requirement can be summarized in so few words. Like Christ Jesus' Beatitudes, the "secret of Christian healing is open to everyone. The Master said it originally this way in Matthew's Gospel: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. To live such prayer is to ensure that Christian healing won't simply become a catch phrase or a fad. Genuine healing reveals man's spiritual nature and our oneness with God, divine Truth, Life, and Love. This is a condensed version of an editorial that appeared in the August 5 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.