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Weekly News In Review

October 30 - November 5, 2005
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The following articles were posted at www.understandthetimes.org this past week:

Labyrinth provides monastery residents with 'inner journey'
Intelligent Design?
Time has come for two states in the Holy Land, says Vatican official
Experience Christ in Eucharist
Vatican to Catholics: Listen to scientists: Cardinal -Believers otherwise risk 'becoming prey to fundamentalism'

Article: Roman Catholic Church and the Last Days

October 29, 2005 - Labyrinth provides monastery residents with 'inner journey'

Sister Marie Andre Shon kept drawing the same patterns. While on a European sabbatical several years ago, the sister with the Missionary Benedictine Sisters at Norfolk's Immaculata Monastery drew and dreamed labyrinth patterns. "I didn't know why I was doing it," Shon said.

"This labyrinth is not usually open to the public," she said. "That day it was open." She said it touched her core, that the Holy Spirit was trying to tell her something. She came home to monastery discussions about creating an environment appropriate to monastic life.

"There was growing interest in the community about a labyrinth," she said. "That also coincided with me returning from my sabbatical." During her studies, Shon said, she learned that the labyrinth patterns are a model of the union of psychology and spirituality." You can experience an inner journey as you are going to the center," she said. "Going inward is like going into the depths of yourself."

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Article: Creation - Evolution Debate

October 28, 2005 - Intelligent Design?

Three proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) present their views of design in the natural world. Each view is immediately followed by a response from a proponent of evolution (EVO). The report, printed in its entirety, opens with an introduction by Natural History magazine and concludes with an overview of the ID movement.

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Article: Israel and the Last Days

November 3, 2005 - Time has come for two states in the Holy Land, says Vatican official

United Nations, Nov. 03, 2005 (CNA) - Peace, security and the creation of two states in the Holy Land are long overdue, said the Vatican's permanent observer to the United Nations.

At a meeting before the UN's Special Political and Decolonization Committee, Archbishop Celestino Migliore said his delegation hopes many problems in the region will be resolved by "negotiation and dialogue" and that a lasting solution will include the question of the Holy City of Jerusalem.

"The time is long overdue for fraternal, open dialogue in order to bring about the birth of two states, side by side, mutually respecting each other's right to exist and prosper," he said Nov.

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and the Last Days

November 5, 2005 - Experience Christ in Eucharist

An evangelizing billboard on a main thoroughfare proclaims the message "Experiencing Christ." But just how can Christians experience Christ in the 21st century? Is it through Scripture alone? Is it only through a "born again" experience?

The answer to experiencing Christ today was given to us by Jesus himself in the first century in the way he carried out his ministry. The Gospel stories are replete with examples of Jesus participating in that most human activity of eating and drinking. Jesus literally communed at the table with disciples and social outcasts. Meal fellowship was central to Jesus' mission. This is not surprising, given its importance in first-century Jewish life. Then, as set forth in the Gospels, and in Corinthians, during the Last Supper he blessed bread and wine, gave it to his disciples to eat and drink as his body and blood, and commanded them to do this in his memory.

Even Jesus' post-Resurrection appearances often involved meals with his disciples. Jesus' example of how to experience him and commemorate him after his ascension became a central ritual of the church from the earliest days. This re-enactment of the Last Supper came to be known as the Lord's Supper, the Holy Eucharist, Holy Communion and the Mass, among other names. Until Jesus comes again, it is the way he directed us to memorialize his sacrifice at Calvary and the unique way he is now sacramentally and mystically present in our lives.

What are the sacramental churches? They are represented by the two largest Christian denominations in the world today, the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. They also include the Orthodox churches, and the Lutheran churches. Their rites directly descend from the early Christian community's frequent celebration of the Lord's Supper set forth in the Gospels, the Book of Acts, and St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians not many years after Jesus departed this Earth.

Where some Christian critics see empty ritual worship, sacramental Christians see the potential for deep spirituality and a wonderful balance of emphasis on Scripture and sacrament through the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist represented in every Sunday worship service.

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and the Last Days

November 3, 2005 - Vatican to Catholics: Listen to scientists: Cardinal -Believers otherwise risk 'becoming prey to fundamentalism'

The Vatican today warned Catholics that if they do not listen to the contentions of modern science - regarding the origin of life and other issues - they risk falling prey to "fundamentalism."

Cardinal Paul Poupard made the comments at a press conference pushing a Vatican project to try to create more mutual respect between science and religion, the Associated Press reported. Poupard heads the Pontifical Council for Culture.

When asked about the debate raging between evolution and intelligent design in the United States, a papal representative reaffirmed John Paul II's 1996 assertion that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis."

Said Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest: "A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false. (Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."

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