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Article: Celebrating innocence: the pattern of possibility revealed by the Immaculate Conception.(REFLECTION)
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- December 9, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When the world was smaller and time was shorter, we inevitably thought of life differently. And we told the world's story, as we told our own, differently too.
There was a beginning, a middle and an end. Individual figures--kings, heroes, prophets, priests--were seen as having the decisive influence. The individual life span and the cycle of seasons provided patterns for understanding existence individually and also communally. And if gods--or a god--appeared in our midst, they acted largely, though not of course entirely, according to such patterns. Yearly rituals sought to restore times of origin, of wholeness and of innocence. Then the stories of the gods were ...