First Church of Christ, Scientist, La Cañada Flintridge, California

Wednesday Meeting Readings

w220720DT
Healing the earth
Wednesday, July 20, 2022
The Bible
  1. Gen. 1:1, 2, 11, 12, 14, 15, 20-22, 24, 25, 29-31 (to 1st .)

    1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

    2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

    11And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

    12And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

    14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

    15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

    ... 20And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

    21And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

    22And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

    24And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

    25And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

    29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

    30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

    31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

  2. Deut. 4:39

    39Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.

  3. Deut. 8:6-10

    6Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.

    7For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;

    8A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;

    9A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

    10When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.

  4. Deut. 10:14

    14Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.

  5. Prov. 3:19

    19The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.


Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy

  1. SH 121:4-7 (np)

        Copernicus mapped out the stellar system, and before he spake, astrography was chaotic, and the heavenly fields 6were incorrectly explored.

        The Chaldean Wisemen read in the stars the fate of empires and the fortunes of men. Though no higher 9Perennial beautyrevelation than the horoscope was to them dis-played upon the empyrean, earth and heaven were bright, and bird and blossom were glad in God’s 12perennial and happy sunshine, golden with Truth. So we have goodness and beauty to gladden the heart; but man, left to the hypotheses of material sense unexplained 15by Science, is as the wandering comet or the desolate star — “a weary searcher for a viewless home.”

        The earth’s diurnal rotation is invisible to the physical 18eye, and the sun seems to move from east to west, instead Astronomic unfoldingsof the earth from west to east. Until rebuked by clearer views of the everlasting facts, this 21false testimony of the eye deluded the judgment and in-duced false conclusions. Science shows appearances often to be erroneous, and corrects these errors by the simple 24rule that the greater controls the lesser. The sun is the central stillness, so far as our solar system is concerned, and the earth revolves about the sun once a year, besides 27turning daily on its own axis.

        As thus indicated, astronomical order imitates the action of divine Principle; and the universe, the reflec-30tion of God, is thus brought nearer the spiritual fact, and is allied to divine Science as displayed in the everlasting government of the universe.

    122

    122:1    The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord, — 3Opposing testimonyassigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly un-derstood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false 6witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven, — the actual reign of harmony on earth.

  2. SH 264:20-21, 28

        Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being. 21Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit.

        When we learn the way in Christian Science and rec-ognize man’s spiritual being, we shall behold and under-30stand God’s creation, — all the glories of earth and heaven and man.

  3. SH 502:22-3

    Genesis i. 1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

    24    The infinite has no beginning. This word beginning is employed to signify the only, — that is, the eternal ver-Ideas and identitiesity and unity of God and man, including 27the universe. The creative Principle — Life, Truth, and Love — is God. The universe reflects God. There is but one creator and one creation. This crea-503503:1tion consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and 3forever reflected.

  4. SH 503:6-15

    6 Genesis i. 2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

    9    The divine Principle and idea constitute spiritual har-mony, — heaven and eternity. In the universe of Truth, Spiritual harmonymatter is unknown. No supposition of error 12enters there. Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, “God is All-in-all,” and the light of ever-present Love illumines 15the universe.

  5. SH 118:26-24

        The definitions of material law, as given by natural 27science, represent a kingdom necessarily divided against Certain contradictionsitself, because these definitions portray law as physical, not spiritual. Therefore they con -30tradict the divine decrees and violate the law of Love, in which nature and God are one and the natural order of heaven comes down to earth.

    119

    119:1    When we endow matter with vague spiritual power, — that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we 3Unescapable dilemmacannot really endow matter with what it does not and cannot possess, — we disown the Al-mighty, for such theories lead to one of two things. They 6either presuppose the self-evolution and self-government of matter, or else they assume that matter is the product of Spirit. To seize the first horn of this dilemma and con-9sider matter as a power in and of itself, is to leave the cre-ator out of His own universe; while to grasp the other horn of the dilemma and regard God as the creator of 12matter, is not only to make Him responsible for all disas-ters, physical and moral, but to announce Him as their source, thereby making Him guilty of maintaining perpet-15ual misrule in the form and under the name of natural law.

        In one sense God is identical with nature, but this na-18ture is spiritual and is not expressed in matter. The law-God and naturegiver, whose lightning palsies or prostrates in death the child at prayer, is not the divine ideal 21of omnipresent Love. God is natural good, and is repre-sented only by the idea of goodness; while evil should be regarded as unnatural, because it is opposed to the nature 24of Spirit, God.

  6. SH 479:18-32

    18    “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and Chaos and darknessdarkness was upon the face of the deep.” 21(Genesis i. 1, 2.) In the vast forever, in the Science and truth of being, the only facts are Spirit and its innumerable creations. Darkness and chaos 24are the imaginary opposites of light, understanding, and eternal harmony, and they are the elements of nothingness.

    27    We admit that black is not a color, because it reflects no light. So evil should be denied identity or power, Spiritual reflectionbecause it has none of the divine hues. Paul 30says: “For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being under-stood by the things that are made.” (Romans i. 20.)

  7. SH 174:9-20 (to 1st .)

    9    The footsteps of thought, rising above material stand-points, are slow, and portend a long night to the traveller; Rise of thoughtbut the angels of His presence — the spiritual 12intuitions that tell us when “the night is far spent, the day is at hand” — are our guardians in the gloom. Whoever opens the way in Christian Science is 15a pilgrim and stranger, marking out the path for gen-erations yet unborn.

        The thunder of Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount 18are pursuing and will overtake the ages, rebuking in their course all error and proclaiming the kingdom of heaven on earth.

  8. SH 68:27-5

    27    Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion; it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind, God’s creation intactbut an impartation of the divine Mind to man 30and the universe. Proportionately as human generation ceases, the unbroken links of eternal, har-monious being will be spiritually discerned; and man, 69 69:1not of the earth earthly but coexistent with God, will appear. The scientific fact that man and the universe 3are evolved from Spirit, and so are spiritual, is as fixed in divine Science as is the proof that mortals gain the sense of health only as they lose the sense of sin and disease.

  9. SH 69:17-19

        If Christian Scientists educate their own offspring 18spiritually, they can educate others spiritually and not conflict with the scientific sense of God’s creation.

  10. SH 76:26-29

    This state of existence 27is scientific and intact, — a perfection discernible only by those who have the final understanding of Christ in divine Science.

  11. SH 111:19

        A prize of one hundred pounds, offered in Oxford Uni-versity, England, for the best essay on Natural Science, 21Pertinent proposal— an essay calculated to offset the tendency of the age to attribute physical effects to physical causes rather than to a final spiritual cause, — is one of 24many incidents which show that Christian Science meets a yearning of the human race for spirituality.

  12. SH 114:23-29

        Christian Science explains all cause and effect as men-24tal, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from Soul and Causation mentalbody. It shows the scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities 27of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought. In divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmoni-ous, and eternal.

  13. SH 124:25

        Spirit is the life, substance, and continuity of all things. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and 27creation must collapse. Human knowledge calls them forces of matter; but divine Science declares that they belong wholly to divine Mind, are inherent in this 30Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification.

  14. SH 127:30-6

    30    Christian Science eschews what is called natural science, in so far as this is built on the false hypotheses that matter is its own lawgiver, that law is founded on material con-128128:1ditions, and that these are final and overrule the might of divine Mind. Good is natural and primitive. It is not 3miraculous to itself.

        The term Science, properly understood, refers only to the laws of God and to His government of the universe, 6Practical Scienceinclusive of man.

  15. SH 130:7

        It is vain to speak dishonestly of divine Science, which Excuses for ignorancedestroys all discord, when you can demonstrate 9the actuality of Science. It is unwise to doubt if reality is in perfect harmony with God, divine Principle, — if Science, when understood and demonstrated, will 12destroy all discord, — since you admit that God is om-nipotent; for from this premise it follows that good and its sweet concords have all-power.


From the Christian Science Hymnal
Hymn 589: “...God has commanded Healing light to shine on earth"\
Hymn 275: “Praise now creative Mind, Maker of earth and heaven”
Hymn 506: “I will come before the Lord In the stillness of the morning”