A podcast interview with Joan Bernard Bradley
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Embracing Diversity – Can prayer really have an effect on the world? Joan Bernard Bradley discovered that learning to pray for herself taught her how to pray for her family and even her community.
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A new podcast is broadcast each week. To listen click on the podcast tab in the top menu.
An article by Annu Matthais from the Christian Science Monitor
Did you know that International Women’s Day was first observed in the early 1900s? And I was surprised to learn that protests against gender inequality started much earlier, with the First Women’s Rights Convention being held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.
It’s interesting to me that this was also the era in which the founder of this news organization, Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), experienced profound changes in her life. She went from being a single mother struggling with chronic health problems and financial difficulties to being a well-known religious leader and the founder of a worldwide church.
Despite the inequality faced by women of her time, Mary Baker Eddy succeeded as an author, publisher, editor, healer, lecturer – all at a time when women could not vote and were considered incapable of managing their own affairs. Her book on spirituality and healing (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”) was included on the Women’s National Book Association list of “75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World.” (Listen to this complete article or continue reading)
Wednesday Testimony Meeting Readings.
This recording is of the readings on the topic: Secure Amid the Storm.
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For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(The Bible KJV – Romans 8: 38, 39)
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Every Wednesday at 6.15pm a Testimony Meeting is held at the Christian Science church in Canberra (corner of Macquarie and Bligh Streets, Barton). At these meetings short readings on a particular topic are followed by time for members of the congregation to share how they have been helped and healed through prayer.
Everyone is welcome.
An article by Nancy Ellett Staal originally published in the March 16, 1998 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
Do you ever wonder if prayer can help others far away who are involved in a catastrophe?
I know that it can. Prayer uplifts thought to God, who is “a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46: 1). Prayer has an inspiring, healing effect on both rescue workers and individuals needing to be rescued or cared for. Helping the victims of a disaster through prayer is practicing the Golden Rule: “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6: 31).
In this article Nancy describes her own experience of being caught in a devastating earthquake. Click here to continue reading.
A Daily Lift by Laura Remmerde
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In this short podcast Laura describes how a conversation with her young grandson made her think more deeply about God’s love for all mankind.
Though I may speak with moving words,
Which can inspire the human heart,
But have not love to seal their worth,
They are but sham and empty art.
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Though I may give my worldly goods
Without a thought of self or gain,
Unless they bear the fruits of love,
They are as clouds without their rain.
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Though I may search the deepest books,
Companion with the wisest men,
God’s loving voice still calls to me,
It bids me turn and look again.
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Now I would learn to know this Love
Through meek and patient ministry,
Until my life has grown anew
And Love is All-in-all to me.
(Hymn 588 from the Christian Science Hymnal – words by Fenella Bennetts inspired by I Corintians 13)
This article by Lyle Young was published in the January 2, 2022 issue of the the Christian Science Sentinel.
Over the centuries, political philosophers developed the theory that democracy is a social pact in which people, for their own good, submit themselves to collective decision-making. But even the strongest of democracies needs constant renewal. How can this be accomplished? … The book of First John in the Bible says that God is Love. … Since our origin, our Father-Mother, is divine Love and infinite Spirit, it’s our nature to be loving and spiritual. This means that the aggressive language sometimes used in politics, the virulent attacks, and the tendency to think of those whose policies we oppose as enemies, are not only profoundly anti-democratic but also profoundly alien to our true selves. (Read the full text)
A Daily Lift by David Brown
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In this short podcast, What We All Share, David talks about a comment made by a listener that made him more aware of the good that is in all of us.
An article by Even Mehlenbacher from the 29 September 2022 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
“When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19), the Bible tells us. The war in Ukraine has captured the attention of people around the world. The spectacle of a massive military force invading a sovereign nation without provocation, meeting fierce resistance, and now plotting a bigger, more destructive offence, has many people wondering what can be done to protect the lives of all caught in this conflict and restore a just peace to that part of the world.
We can support such progress by understanding that there’s a spiritual basis for staying safe when faced with a flood of aggression and oppression. continue reading
In this article Even shares his prayers and the proven spiritual truths that he affirmed in order to bring a sense of peace.
Throughout her life, Mary Baker Eddy, the Founder of Christian Science, lived in an area of the United States prone to climatic extremes. Having grown up on a farm, she was certainly aware of the impact that weather conditions could have on people’s economic and physical well-being. And in teaching Christian Science, she identified weather forces as subordinate to God.
Irving Tomlinson was a student of Eddy and worked on her staff for a number of years. He described her approach to the weather this way:
Mrs. Eddy taught us that weather conditions are not beyond God’s control, and that they can be corrected through right prayer. She made it clear that Christian Scientists are not to attempt to control or govern the weather. We should know that God governs the weather and no other influence can be brought to bear on it. She said we are to be particularly watchful to guard against any disastrous effects of storms.
Eddy’s correspondence and other writings indicate that she specified violent weather elements in particular as requiring ongoing prayerful attention. …
Clara Knox McKee was Eddy’s personal maid in 1906 and 1907. She recounted an experience that helps to illustrate further the distinction Eddy made between attempting to control the weather and holding it as a subjective state of human consciousness:
One day Mrs. Eddy called her students into her study and pointed to a very black cloud, shaped like a cornucopia, coming toward the house in direct line with her front study window. She asked each one to go to a window and face it, and to realize that there were no destructive elements in God’s creation. While the cyclone came whirling straight toward Pleasant View, before it reached within a mile or so, it parted and went around Concord and into the mountains, doing very little damage in our neighborhood. …
Mary Baker Eddy’s convictions regarding God, prayer, weather, and climate grew out of her Christianity. As a student of the Bible, she read in the Hebrew Scriptures accounts of prophetic appeals to God in times of drought. She knew well the Gospel stories of Jesus Christ stilling a storm on the Sea of Galilee. Unlike some others, however, Eddy came to believe that these incidents were neither miracles nor interruptions of the natural order. Instead, she classified them as demonstrations of divine law, which overruled what she identified as the limitations associated with laws of nature.
These statements are from an answer compiled by the researchers at the Mary Baker Eddy Library (menu option: Questions). The complete answer to the question: What did Mary Baker Eddy say about the weather? can be read here:
Christian Science Canberra 