CORRECT INTERPRETATION

CORRECT INTERPRETATION – 3^rd Sunday after Easter, Year A

            Everyone has had experiences which others interpreted differently than we did. At time, we don’t see sufficiently into our own personal experiences to make a total interpretation. So depending on our own or others insights, our experiences are more or less interpreted truthfully or completely. Some can be so sure about their interpretation, with little real understanding of the total situation, and be very wrong. We do well to be careful.

            Whenever we come before the Lord in prayer, and meet Him in His Word, whether we are by ourselves, and especially when we are in the Assembly on the Lord’s Day for the breaking of the bread of His Word and His Risen Body and Blood, we bring with us our experiences, good and bad, our pains, problems, sicknesses, wellness, health, hopes, successes, failures, sins, virtues, loving and not so loving relationships.  Into our experiences and lives, the Risen Lord comes to interpret our lives and experiences and to help us see the deeper dimensions by the power and Person of the Holy Spirit.

            Luke tells us about two men “…going to a village…” who received an interpretation from the Risen Jesus on their life experiences, and those of His own crucifixion, death, and resurrection. They learned that only in knowing the true interpretation of life and knowing the Risen Lord, and recognizing Him in the breaking of the bread, could they have a full understanding of their lives. “Were not our hearts burning within us while He spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” They told others how they had encountered Jesus and had come to know Him in the breaking of the bread.

            When we have made incomplete interpretations of our lives and experiences, and seen others make them also of us, it helps us to see ourselves and others in the light of God’s Word, and to listen to the Risen Lord speaking to us. No doubt the Lord’s interpretations of our lives and experiences differ more frequently than we might realize from others, and even our own. For often the interpretations of others are based on their own needs, perceptions, prejudices and weaknesses. The Lord’s interpretations suffer no such limitations. Many who give considerable attention to human interpretations, which they know to be flawed, give very little to the Lord’s interpretations.

            The Scriptures are already about us. The experiences they speak of, and their interpretations of them, help us to understand our life and experiences. The people in the Scriptures are reflections, mirrors, of ourselves. They not only interpret our experiences but call us into the kinds of experiences of life the Lord wants us to have. The Scriptures are a present message to us of the Risen Lord present to us by the Spirit interpreting life.

            The Sacred Liturgy is where we especially meet our Risen Lord and recognize His presence in the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread. We don’t always immediately see how the Scriptures are to be applied to our lives or are to interpret our experiences. The Lord helps us to see through the broken Word and Bread by His power and presence. We learn from the Gospels that the appearances of the Risen Lord to the disciples took place in the Assembly, or when they were breaking open the Word of God and in the breaking of the bread of the Lord’s Body and Blood. This is the experience of many today as well.

            Seeking the Lord’s interpretation for our life and experiences is among the most important things we do in life. It’s crucial for carrying out His will, correctly evaluating ourselves and others, and maintaining our sense of balance and hope. Jesus found the interpretation of His life in His Father. We do well to find ours in the Risen Lord who continues to speak to us through His Spirit, and especially as He did from the very beginning, in the Assembly when the bread of His Word and Body are broken and shared. “…realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct…with the precious blood of Christ…your faith and hope are in God.” Listen to your own interpretations, and those of others, of your life experiences, but especially to God’s interpretations of your life!

Reflection from Divine Mercy #687

“Say unceasingly the chaplet that I have taught you. Whoever will recite it will receive great mercy at the hour of death. Priests will recommend it to sinners as their last hope of salvation. Even if there were a sinner most hardened, if he were to recite this chaplet only once, he would receive grace from My infinite mercy. I desire that the whole world know My infinite mercy. I desire to grant unimaginable graces to those souls who trust in My mercy.”