I never fail to be touched by accounts of the life of Mary Baker Eddy.
The Foreword to Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy concludes with an excerpt from a letter by Mrs. Eddy to the author, Reverend Irving C. Tomlinson.
She wrote: "The little that I have accomplished has all be done through love, --self-forgetful, patient, unfaltering tenderness."
The letter now appears in Miscellany, page 247 under the heading "To a First Reader".
Julie Swannell
This is probably the last word for this blog about The
Sermon on the Mount. A brief word!
I read through Matthew chapters 6 and 7.
I was left with the impression that I was being told how to
pray and how to accomplish tasks and receive rewards: things, fruits, benefits,
have needs met. And the way to get rewards and create harmony and peace is to
KNOW that we are already in the Kingdom of Heaven and include all good, and
only good.
Is not Jesus’ gift of the Lord’s Prayer the
promise that our needs are being met? He said “...your Father knoweth what
things ye have need of, before ye ask him” (Matt. 6:8).
Joyce Voysey
Ed. I came across an article called SpiritualReward by Ruth Wesler in the Christian Science Sentinel April 10, 1937. Here's an excerpt:
Through the good we know and do our names are written in heaven… The
consciousness of having done right is a wondrous reward for being about the
Father's business... Spiritual rewards are free to all, yet they must be
earned. Mrs. Eddy, who so dearly earned and richly received her spiritual
reward, has written, on page 342 of Miscellaneous Writings:
"Seek Truth, and pursue it. It should cost you something: you are willing
to pay for error and receive nothing in return; but if you pay the price of
Truth, you shall receive all."
February has been our month to review the
Sermon on the Mount, viz. Matthew chapters 5 - 7.
Well here we are at the end of February (also marking
the official end of summer here in Australia) and we haven't even talked about
chapters 6 and 7!
I've just read them in my copy of the Living
Bible.
Jesus' teachings are direct, practical, wise, and
reassuring. They are our gold standard. Maybe we are still amazed at this
sermon, as were the original listeners. It is recorded that he spoke with "great
authority, and not as their Jewish leaders" (Matt. 7: 28 TLB).
Here's a passage that stopped me in my tracks this
evening. Matt. 7: 24-25 - "All those who listen to my instructions and
follow them are wise, like a man who builds his house on solid rock. Though the
rain comes in torrents, and the floods rise and the storm winds beat against
his house, it won't collapse, for it is built on rock."
Now, we know that Jesus gave Simon the new name of
Peter after he impetuously speaks up and identifies Jesus as "the
Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16: 16
TLB). He says: "You are Peter, a stone; and upon this rock I
will build my church..." (Matt. 16: 18 TLB).
In her textbook of Christian Science, Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy tells us that
"rock" stands for "Spiritual foundation; Truth" (SH
583)*. This hints at how we might build our lives on solid ground and thus
avoid being blown off course when winds blow.
Readers will want to pull out their Concordances or
open up the indispensable online Concord to study references to this mighty sermon in
Mrs. Eddy's writings. Here are just a few to get us started:
The
first lessons of the children should be the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20: 3–17),
the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6: 9–13), and its Spiritual Interpretation by Mary
Baker Eddy, Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5: 3–12).
(Man. 62:24–4 The)
Every man and woman should be to-day a law to himself,
herself, — a law of loyalty to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
(Mis. 12:12–14)
No purer and more exalted teachings ever fell upon
human ears than those contained in what is commonly known as the Sermon on the
Mount, — though this name has been given it by compilers and translators of the
Bible, and not by the Master himself or by the Scripture authors.
(Ret. 91:5–10)
Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate
morally from that divine digest of Science called the Sermon on the Mount, than
they will manipulate invalids, prescribe drugs, or deny God.
(Rud. 3:14–17)
To my sense the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday
without comment and obeyed throughout the week, would be enough for Christian
practice.
('01 11:16–19)
Julie Swannell
*The whole definition reads: ROCK. Spiritual
foundation; Truth. Coldness and stubbornness. (SH 583)
