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In his reflection, Fr Kieran asks us to consider the twin ideas of discovery and revelation. In both cases, we learn something new, something that was previously unknown to us and if we didn’t think too much about it, we might not pay much attention to the difference. But as Kieran points out, there are fundamental differences.

As with so much of our language, we can find the roots of the words we use every day in Latin (or Greek). In the case of “reveal” and, “discover” a quick look at their Latin roots tells its own story. “Discover” comes from the Latin “dis,” a negative, and “cooperio,” to hide; that is, it means an unhiding of something. On the other hand, “reveal” is from “re,” meaning back, and “velum,” meaning a veil; that is, something is seen when the veil is withdrawn. In both cases, something that was unseen is now seen but there is a difference, isn’t there? Discovery implies some conscious action whereas revelation suggests that what is unhidden is separate to any act of the one looking.

Kieran reflects on this difference, illustrating his point as always through Scripture and brings us inexorably to the conclusion that as Christians, it is revelation that will change our lives!

Very many of us are familiar with the name Helen Keller. Helen was permanently deaf and blind as a result of an illness she contracted at just 19 months old.

In something she wrote, she said: “Blindness separates us from things, but deafness separates us from people.”

Fr Kieran’s reflection this week bring those words to mind. Kieran takes as the theme of his reflection the story of the apostle Thomas, or as the world often knows him, “Doubting Thomas” as told in St John’s Gospel (Jn 20:24-29). In the Gospel story, there is much about “seeing” – whether Thomas’s doubt on hearing that the other apostles have “seen” the Lord or even, the words of Jesus himself after his encounter with Thomas when He says to him: “You believe because you can see me. Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

However, Kieran asks us to turn our minds to another one of our senses, that of hearing. In our lives, we are called to the presence of Jesus via our hearing, “in scripture, in prayer, and in the suffering of creation, to name the primary sources of revelation.” It seems that when speaking of our encounters with the Lord, Helen Keller and Kieran are on the same page!

In his reflection, Fr Kieran encourages us to look deeper at who is my enemy, and who is my friend.

In our day to day lives, we can react badly to those who challenge us, who call out the error of our ways. We can be like King Ahab in the reading from the first book of the Kings that Kieran takes for his theme. Our instinct can be to see those who challenge us as our enemy and all too often, we don’t wish to either see them nor hear them! But are we too quick to see ‘enemy’ when we might be looking at ‘friend?’

When we read or listen to Scripture, all too often we can find ourselves challenged, asked to account for our thoughts and actions. But surely we would never see those words as coming from the ‘enemy’ but instead see beyond the human reaction to go further, to see the error of our ways, and to change; to be transformed.