If you could tell a caterpillar that one day he’d be able to fly and have the most beautiful wings in all of creation, do you think he’d believe you? Similarly, if you tell a typical person living anywhere across Britain today that “they are beautiful and made in the perfect image of God, who loves you so much that He wants you to come and join him for an eternal feast at his ‘pad’, which of course is Heaven”, do you think they’d believe you? I think that most of the population of Britain (and also the caterpillar) would think that you were crazy! I’m also sure that most people would go on to explain that man with his acres of modern wisdom and scientific research formed over centuries of experiments, debate and study have proven that the invisible or spiritual realm couldn’t possibly exist. The internet and ‘cyber-world’ is full of content explaining these rational perspectives.

Let’s put science to one side very briefly. During holy Mass we say the Nicene Creed as the profession of our faith which was written around 325AD and it starts with the following words, “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.”. Quite a few Sundays ago the word ‘invisible’ stuck in my mind. I can easily see that ‘visible’ relates to the physical world that surrounds us and expanding knowledge of science explains 99.9% of how it all works. The invisible world is much harder to comprehend and human intelligence doesn’t quite understand it yet. According to CERN, physical matter (galaxies, stars and planets) makes up about 5% of the known universe and dark matter (which isn’t understood, has been observed in experiments but isn’t visible) accounts for an estimated 27%. The same is true of the spiritual world – our souls, angels, the kingdom of Heaven, the Holy Spirit, God our father. In this list, which isn’t complete, I should also include the daily miracle, where Jesus becomes wholly present in the Eucharist (if you doubt read John 6:51-58). Also and lastly (and rightfully so) satan and his cronies, the demons.

OK, so all these spiritual ‘invisible things’ are hard to accept and I’m sure even some mature Christians incorrectly doubt the eucharistic miracle, but also angels, dark spiritual forces, such as satan and demons and they are rationally put down to a quirk of ancient writing, not to be literally believed in today’s technologically advanced and street savvy world. Hebrews (12:22-23) documents a view of a subset of this majestic invisible world, “We have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in Heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.”.

A scientist must demonstrate any theory using experiments to create physical evidence for their work to be believed by other scientists. In John 20:25, Thomas refused to believe Jesus had risen from the dead unless he could ‘see the mark of the nails in his hands, put his finger into the nail marks and put his hand into his side’. Jesus’ resurrection was so unimaginable to him that it was like he wanted to conduct his own little science experiment in order to believe. After he did this, Jesus said, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”.

In the words, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed”, Jesus is calling us to have faith in the things we haven’t seen or touched, these invisible things. To do this we need to put aside scepticism and in Jesus’ words in doing this we will be ‘blessed’. It will bring us closer to God.

Like Thomas, must we physically see and touch before we accept these and other core spiritual elements of our faith? While we are alive, our spiritual self and our future inheritance is hidden from us, maybe we are distracted by the splendour of the physical world. As in the caterpillar at the beginning, one day he will go into the tomb of the cocoon and then he’ll be metamorphosed (resurrected) into this magnificent beautiful creation. We too all have an eternal future which will be far beyond our wildest expectations, although to take our place we must allow ourselves to descend into our spiritual ‘tomb’, to then rise in God’s strength and in faith, and grow spiritually by letting go of the world and holding tight to the word of God and His church.

St Paul describes this in 1 Corinthians 15:46 onwards: “But first came the natural body, not the spiritual one; that came only afterwards. The first man, being made of earth, is earthly by nature; the second man is from heaven. The earthly man is the pattern for earthly people, the heavenly man for heavenly ones. And as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so we shall bear the likeness of the heavenly one. What I am saying, brothers, is that mere human nature cannot inherit the kingdom of God: what is perishable cannot inherit what is imperishable.”. Therefore let us have faith and truly believe in, “all things visible and invisible.”.