Sunday, December 30th, 2018 Roundtable

Click here to play the audio as you read:

Also available on YouTube


Click here for the Roundtable archive

Morning Prayers

May this little sanctum be preserved sacred to the memory of this pure purpose, and subserve it. Let the Bible and the Christian Science textbook preach the gospel which heals the sick and enlightens the people’s sense of Christian Science. This ministry, reaching the physical, moral, and spiritual needs of humanity, will, in the name of Almighty God, speak the truth that to-day, as in olden time, is found able to heal both sin and disease.

— from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 147




We, to-day, in this class-room, are enough to convert the world if we are of one Mind; for then the whole world will feel the influence of this Mind; as when the earth was without form, and Mind spake and form appeared.

— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 279: 27-2

Discussion points

Golden Text — “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” — John 14: 18




1 — WATCH lest you attempt to do anything in Christian Science from any standpoint except that of joy. Our Leader’s hymn admonishes us to follow and rejoice all the rugged way. Work in Christian Science that is done joyously, has a power and effectiveness that work done as a solemn duty never has. If you seem to have lost your joy, obey Mrs. Eddy’s command, “If your joy is lost, handle animal magnetism.” If this is properly done, your joy will return, and you can again take up your work. Our Leader once wrote to George Kinter, “Gladness and rejoicing are divine in essence, and their reward is manifold in its effect.”

— Watching Point 1 from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter




Dark and cheerless is the morn
Uncompanioned, Lord, by thee;
Joyless is the day’s return,
Till thy mercy’s beams I see;
Till thy inward light impart,
Glad my eyes and warm my heart.
Visit then this soul of mine,
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me, radiancy divine,
Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.

— from Hymn 35 from the Christian Science Hymnal




Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
Here health and peace are found, Life, Truth , and Love;
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow but Love can remove.
Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure;
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
Earth has no sorrow that Love cannot cure.
Here see the Bread of of Life, see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above;
Come to the feast of Love, come, ever knowing,
Earth has no sorrow but Love can remove.

— from Hymn 40 from the Christian Science Hymnal words by Thomas Moore




When from the lips of Truth one mighty breath
Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in its breeze
The whole dark pile of human mockeries;
Then shall the reign of Mind commence on earth,
And starting fresh, as from a second birth,
Man in the sunshine of the world’s new spring,
Shall walk transparent like some holy thing.

— from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 51




Forum post — Give You Another Comforter by Lynda from PA




RESPONSIVE READING: ISAIAH 61 : 1-4, 10, 11
1. The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
2. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
3. To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
4. And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.
10. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
11. For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.




Forum post — …the day of vengeance of our God by Jeremy from NJ




Forum post — Faith/Fear Scale by Parthens




Our Master said, “But the Comforter … shall teach you all things.” When the Science of Christianity appears, it will lead you into all truth. The Sermon on the Mount is the essence of this Science, and the eternal life, not the death of Jesus, is its outcome.

— Citation 5 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 271 : 20-25




Forum post — Will Manifest Myself to Him by Florence Roberts




The Sermon on the Mount




The Attitude of Love, from Teaching and Addresses by Edward A. Kimball




The Dixon Letter




Final Readings

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. Indeed, this title really indicates more the Master’s mood, than the material locality.

Where did Jesus deliver this great lesson — or, rather, this series of great lessons — on humanity and divinity?

On a hillside, near the sloping shores of the Lake of Galilee, where he spake primarily to his immediate disciples.

In this simplicity, and with such fidelity, we see Jesus ministering to the spiritual needs of all who placed themselves under his care, always leading them into the divine order, under the sway of his own perfect understanding.

His power over others was spiritual, not corporeal. To the students whom he had chosen, his immortal teaching was the bread of Life. When he was with them, a fishing-boat became a sanctuary, and the solitude was peopled with holy messages from the All-Father. The grove became his class-room, and nature’s haunts were the Messiah’s university.

What has this hillside priest, this seaside teacher, done for the human race? Ask, rather, what has he not done.

His holy humility, unworldliness, and self-abandonment wrought infinite results. The method of his religion was not too simple to be sublime, nor was his power so exalted as to be unavailable for the needs of suffering mortals, whose wounds he healed by Truth and Love.

His order of ministration was “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” May we unloose the latchets of his Christliness, inherit his legacy of love, and reach the fruition of his promise: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

— from Retrospection and Introspection by Mary Baker Eddy, 91-92


Love is the liberator.

Print this page


Share via email