Sunday, November 9th, 2025 Roundtable
Reopen the Gates of Paradise
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Adam And Fallen Man
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Morning Prayer
The need of divine wisdom and Love — Christ’s assurance of prayer answered — and the absolute Science of God’s Allness, moves the Christian Scientist to pray for the peace, prosperity, and brotherhood of all nations and peoples. No willpower is used in the Scientist’s prayer, since human will must be lost in the Divine, for prayer to be efficacious. In the words of Zechariah, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” I would ask that all Christians unite in prayer for the cessation of sin, — the oppression of the weak, — the accession of power at the sacrifice of individual rights; but especially that divine Love shield the innocent from the wrath of the guilty, and cause it to praise Love.
from Watches, Prayers, and Arguments, as given by Mary Baker Eddy, page 69
Daily Watch
165 — WATCH lest you hold your concept of God and your concept of man as two separate parts of your scientific thought, as though you could have a right idea of God, and a wrong idea of man at the same time. There is authority for the statement that the phrase, “Hallowed be Thy name,” means man. If this be correct, then with the acknowledgment of God as Father comes the command to hallow man.
If the windshield of your automobile was so dirty that it made everyone you looked at appear to be blurred, the rays of the sun shining through it on you would also become distorted. “Love is reflected in love.”
Your concept of your brother man determines how divine Mind shines to you and through you. Striving to see humanity as God sees them, pure and perfect, opens the way for the love and power of God to flow to you and through you in ever increasing purity and potency. If, on the other hand, you persist in holding even one individual in a wrong sense without striving to correct it, do not be surprised if divine Love is distorted and reversed in your experience.
The Bible tells us that Job found the way out of his discord, lack and suffering, when he prayed for his friends (Job 42:10). His endeavor to see the Christ in others opened the way for the Christ to come to him.
Discussion points
Hallow
1. To make holy; to consecrate; to set apart for holy or religious use.
2. To devote to holy or religious exercises; to treat as sacred.
3. To reverence; to honor as sacred.
The 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
Reverence
To regard with reverence; to regard with fear mingled with respect and affection.
The 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
12. 476 : 28-5
When speaking of God’s children, not the children of men, Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you;” that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God’s image is unfallen and eternal. Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.
The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 259
6. Matthew 6 : 9-13
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
The sinner makes his own hell by doing evil, and the saint his own heaven by doing right.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 266
The Christian Science Home by W. H. Jenkins
Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 58
Mrs. Eddy’s earthly home, called Pleasant View, or Chestnut Hill, is not important to students today, but her sense of home that she established is, namely, a place where one seeks to establish divine Mind as supreme in all that he does, even in the most commonplace and menial tasks, and to continue this effort, until he has made divine Mind his permanent Mind, and all belief in a so-called human mind has been ruled out.
from Watches, Prayers, and Arguments, as given by Mary Baker Eddy
Home, from Collectanea by Mary Baker Eddy
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [love] for ever.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 578
Excerpt on Teeth, from Sermons and Articles by Doris White Evans
Letter on Sight by Mary Baker Eddy
A member of Mrs. Eddy’s household had an appointment with the dentist and Mrs. Eddy needed her just when the appointment was scheduled and would not let her go. She said that if she had, she would have been allowing mortal mind to rob what should be sacrificed for the whole world’s good. The need was met without the dentist and the tooth filled with substance.
from Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy
Treatment for Pain
When mesmerized by pain, turn and say: “I know what you are. This is not pain or a belief of pain. It is a belief of mind in matter; a lie of belief without a believer, nothingness claiming to be something. I am not afraid. I am spiritual, and so immune.”
Teaching and Addresses on Christian Science by Edward A. Kimball, page 130
13. 171 : 4-8 (to 4th ,)
Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free,
We sometimes ask, “Why am I here anyway?” What do we mean by the word “here?” Do we mean a material mortal world? Then we are accepting this lie that Jehovah has placed us in mortality. The alert Christian Scientist knows that the only “here” is the omnipresence of God, spiritual perfection. It is Elohim, divine Love, who places us in this heavenly kingdom. Be alert on this subject and its relationship to your home, environment, position, family, relationships, etc. Our Leader says in Unity of Good, page 3: “He … guides every event of our careers.” You know, in the study of the subject of psychology one hears a great deal in regard to the part that heredity and environment plays upon an individual. Here is a phase of this same lie, that your environment determines who you are, what you can do, and what you will finally accomplish. Don’t you accept this lie that a false sense of environment has any influence over you whatsoever, either the environment of yesterday or today. God, divine Love, unfolds the good in your experience, for He has environed you in the kingdom of heaven. …
The twelfth lie is that man is alone. We read: “And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone…” Here is the argument that someone is alone, everything is not good. What a lie! Man is never alone. Do you know what the word “alone” really means? “All one.” Man is forever completely altogether “all one” with God. Hear Jesus’ ringing words on this subject (John 16:32): “Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone…” And then after a pause he continued: “… and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” If you want human hell just think of yourself as all alone and then self-pity and loneliness will consume you. There is only one thing worse than being alone and that is to believe that you have to get some material creature as a helpmeet to take away your loneliness. God is forever your one and only helpmeet and you can say as did Jesus: “And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” Now, I don’t want any of you to misunderstand what I saying. I am not speaking against marriage. It is a wonderful institution. What the writer of Genesis is bringing out is that we must not be slaves to human relationships. I know some people who have made themselves miserable and others who have made themselves fools trying to get a husband or a wife to overcome loneliness. The only way to overcome loneliness is to recognize your all-oneness with God, infinite good. As you recognize this all-oneness with God, you certainly make yourself much more attractive. You may do such a good job of it that a very good companion finds you; but this companionship is just one of the added things which come with the realization of your all-oneness with God and the recognition that all of His ideas are related harmoniously together according to His law.
No Big Power Veto — 1948 Association Address by Herbert E. Rieke
Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank?
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 266
God is our Father and our Mother, our Minister and the great Physician: He is man’s only real relative on earth and in heaven. David sang, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.”
from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 151
Isaiah 54:5
For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
We have it only as we live it.
from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 126