Sunday January 31st, 2021 Roundtable
The Greatest Thing in the World
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Love
Click here to play the audio as you read:
Morning Prayers
You are the child of the loving God, surrounded and protected by infinite Love. There is no hatred or evil to frighten you. You have no disease, you have nothing to fear, you are not in danger, you are entirely well, and continually held in the presence of God.
God is always with a good desire, giving it power, activity, energy, intelligent action and rich fruition. He brings every right endeavor to its fulfillment, and gives more blessings than one has sought.
Possess yourself of good and dispossess yourself of any other mind, and all the mystery of iniquity beateth in vain against your house.
Abide in Love. Nothing can touch or harm you in Love. Know that you live in Love. Love is God as Life itself. Take this understanding with you and bless others with Love.
— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”),
by Mary Baker Eddy, page 229
Discussion points
367 — WATCH that you heal with divine Love, and feel love for the true selfhood of your patient, no matter how repulsive the human wrappings may appear to be. Your healing thought may be scientific, but without love you provide no channel through which to convey the healing power to the patient. On page 365 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy stresses this need for love. She goes so far as to say that if we reach our patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished in one visit. Also in the Sentinel for July 3, 1943 her words are, “Love, love, love; then you will heal the sick and raise the dead.”
— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter
GOLDEN TEXT: Romans 13 : 10
“Love is the fulfilling of the law.” — Christ Jesus
Listen to Hymn — Hymn 182 from the Christian Science Hymnal
Make channels for the streams of Love,
Where they may broadly run;
And Love has overflowing streams,
To fill them every one.
Article — “Loving to live … Living to love – A CS Lecture” Forum post by Louise from MO.
Truth talked and not lived, rolls on the human heart a stone;
— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 293
Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death.
— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 242
The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love.
— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 113
If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like dew before the morning sunshine.
— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 365
Reach: To arrive at; gain, and achieve mean to arrive at; to penetrate; to get to.
— from 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
The divine method of paying sin’s wages involves unwinding one’s snarls and learning from experience how to divide between sense and Soul.
— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 240
If half the attention given to hygiene were given to the study of Christian Science and to the spiritualization of thought, this alone would usher in the milleninium.
— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 382
Article — “The Millennium” in Addresses by Martha Wilcox
If all who seek his commemoration through material symbols will take up the cross, heal the sick, cast out evils, and preach Christ, or Truth, to the poor, — the receptive thought, — they will bring in the millennium.
— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 34
Article — “The Frozen River”A legend read in Mrs. Eddy’s home many times at her request.
Click here to listen to — Be Thou My Vision Performed by Faith, Jared, Bruce, and Craig
I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun, Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning, Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea, Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.
I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me;
God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me,
God’s hosts to save me, Afar and anear,
Alone or in a multitude.
Christ shield me today
Against wounding,
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through the mighty strength
Of the Lord of creation.
— “The Deer`s Cry” A Hymn by St. Patrick
Article — Some Notes on True Vision by John L. Morgan
Fulfilling: – Accomplishing; performing; completing.
— from 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
The millennium is a state and stage of mental advancement, going on since ever time was. Its impetus, accelerated by the advent of Christian Science, is marked, and will increase till all men shall know Him (divine Love) from the least to the greatest, and one God and the brotherhood of man shall be known and acknowledged throughout the earth.
— from Science and Health, 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 239-240
Article — “The Greatest Thing in the World” by Henry Drummond
Love begets love. It is a process of induction. Put a piece of iron in the presence of an electrified body, and that piece of iron for a time becomes electrified. It is changed into a temporary magnet in the mere presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave the two side by side, they are both magnets alike. Remain side by side with Him who loved us, and gave himself for us, and you, too, will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractive force; and like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him you will be drawn unto all men. That is the inevitable effect of Love. Any man who fulfills that cause must have that effect produced in him.
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
— 1 Corinthians 13 from the King James Bible
1 Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
3 He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
4 In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
5 He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
— Psalm 15 from the King James Bible
Inspires: to communicate divine instructions to the mind
— from 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
My dear Student, Love is a mighty spiritual force.
— Autograph album of Mattie Williams with message above inscribed,
by Mary B. G. Eddy (Mass. Metaphysical, College, Boston 1884.)
Poem — “Teach Me to Love” by Louise Knight Wheatley
Browning once wrote, —
Such a starved bank of moss
Till, that May-morn,
Blue ran the flash across:
Violets were born!
There is many a “starved bank of moss” in our midst today, just waiting for the sunshine. It has passed through many phases of experience during that long, cold winter of its discontent. First of all, in a mental mist, thick and dull as some November fog, it lost sight of the light of Truth, and quickly after that the December snow buried it in fear, remorse, suffering, self-condemnation, and shame. Then it was seized in the ice-bound grasp of pride and resentment, growing ever more hard and stubborn and bitter, after which the cutting winds of criticism blew upon it, and the empty blustering of idle tongues lashed it into fury. Then, one day, it came about that a wonderful thing happened. A compassionate look fell upon that shrinking, suffering one, followed by a gentle word of encouragement, and the poor starved consciousness responded, just as the cold earth responds when the showers of April fall upon it. Then the light of Love shone upon it, and it was strangely warmed and comforted. It felt a sudden new desire to move, to grow, to put out wee white fibers from its shriveled roots, to wake out of its long sleep, to be something, to do something. And at last came “that May-morn” when there was no longer any starved bank of moss, but just a velvety green slope, starry with violets, lifting their blue eyes in silent gratitude to that Love which had brought them into being, to that Love which is God, and which, like the sunshine, makes glad “the wilderness and the solitary place,” causing even the desert to “rejoice, and blossom as the rose.”
— “Compassion” from the Christian Science Sentinel, March 14, 1914 by Louise Knight Wheatly