Ralph W. Cessna, C.S.B., of Wilmette, Illinois
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
No situation or condition is beyond God's control, Ralph W. Cessna, C.S.B., of Wilmette, Illinois, told an audience.
Mr. Cessna, a Christian Science practitioner and teacher, is on tour as a member of The Christian Science Board of Lectureship. He gave his lecture titled, "The Way to Healing".
In order to find the way to healing, the lecturer said "we must be willing to look at God in perhaps a little different way than we have been used to."
Mr. Cessna reminded his listeners of Jesus' statement from the gospel of John: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
The truth we need to know in order to find the way to spiritual healing, the lecturer explained, is the truth about the real nature of God. Knowing this, we can discover the truth about ourselves as "the man that God makes in His image, His true reflection."
Thus they reason that man made in God's image "must include by reflection all of the divine attributes or qualities God expresses." Among these qualities are "purity, strength, health, wisdom, clarity, peace, joy, happiness, and love." Christian Scientists find the words Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love very helpful in defining or thoughtfully considering the nature of God, Cessna said.
But to see the practicality of this reasoning or to achieve healing through these truths, we have do more than just think about them. We must live in accord with them, the lecturer declared. As we learn to express more love, intelligence, and wisdom — more honesty and humility — we will find our daily lives becoming happier and more satisfying.
What of the evil we see around us? Cessna asked. Gradually, we can begin to see that it is not really fact — not basic spiritual fact.
What we're really being healed of is our "ignorance of God, or Truth," he affirmed. He quoted from the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy: "It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony."
The lecturer related healings of his mother through Christian Science, first of what had been medically diagnosed as cancer, then of an acute and advanced goiter. "Each took some time to heal," he said, "but each healing was complete, leaving not a mark or sign."
"What brought about these healings? It was her better sense of the fact that the man of God's creating expresses not malignance, pride, selfishness, hatred, or fear, but goodness, purity, selflessness, humility, and love."
The lecturer also described his own healing, through Christian Science treatment alone, of a broken rib. He said, "I know it was a broken rib and that it had been healed, because some time later during an examination for an army commission the physician said to me: 'I see you had a bad break in that rib there. Someone certainly did a good job of setting it.'"
Mr. Cessna spoke of love as an essential ingredient of Christian Science treatment. But real love, he said, is not just being nice to people.
"Real loving is seeing the perfection of God and thus the perfection of His creation, man . . .
"And here is something you may not have thought about," he added. "Loving yourself is a perfectly right, in fact necessary, thing to do. I don't mean selfishness or egotism. I mean loving who you really are, God's man . . .
"This kind of love is not smug, nor is it self-righteousness. It's simply a recognition of the fact that man is perfect — and remember this means the other fellow, too — not because he has made himself that way, but because he is the perfect reflection of the perfect God."
Harmony in our daily lives, the lecturer declared, is the outward evidence of harmony in our thinking.
"Your consciousness is your world, your universe — whatever you are conscious of . . . And it is important to see that as a result of your individual right-knowing — knowing, for example, that because man reflects Mind, he must express intelligence — there will be an improvement in the wisdom you reflect and the success you have in taking needful human action.
"This is the result of knowing the Truth. It is application of Truth to all things. This is true involvement."
[1969.]