things visible and invisible

I am Catholic, and the phrase "things visible and invisible" comes from the Nicene Creed.

Why does this matter? 
Well, pre-2011, there was a different translation of the Nicene Creed that used the terms "things seen and unseen". When I first heard the words translated as "things visible and invisible", I got excited, in a way that maybe only nerdy, sciency Catholics get excited. (Amiright??)

In the realm of the conceptual... the idea of things that are visible and invisible is much more concrete to me than the idea of "things seen and unseen." (Yeah, I know, concrete things in a conceptual realm...)

Simply because something is visible, does not mean we "see" it with our naked eye - it might be visible, but tiny, requiring magnification to see - or only visible when probed with a certain wavelength of light. Much of my scientific training was in spectroscopy, so this makes sense, and is meaningful, to me... if it makes no sense to you, don't worry about it. We all relate to the world, to each other, and to the Divine, in different ways. 

Likewise, just because something is "unseen," does not mean it is truly "invisible". This is true in science, and  it is equally true on the spiritual level -
 where there are certainly "invisible" things, the workings of God that we do not perceive with our own eyes.




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