Book excerpt: Vestige of Eden, Image of Eternity: Common Experience, the Hierarchy of Being, and Modern Science proffers a Catholic worldview of creation and the universe and shows that it is reasonable in the light of the best of 0human experience, both modern and pre-modern. The Catholic worldview maintains that the Liturgy of the Church - the image of eternity - is the?blueprint? for material and immaterial reality. This liturgical structure is manifested in the natural world through the hierarchy of being - the vestige of Eden - evident to human knowledge, and as such provides a framework that easily subsumes and makes sense of the data of modern scholarship and science. It also leaves them open to understanding in the light of realties beyond matter. Proposing a novel framework for understanding reality to modern ears, yet old in the history of human thought, 0Vestigeof Eden will be of interest to general readers and college students, while proving profitable for the academic as well.