Words

Have you ever read something and then reread it later and got a total different meaning from it or had a new perspective?  I have.   Maturity, education, experience, events, etc. impact how we understand things.  Even more so when we are reading versus listening to someone speak.  Inflection of the voice, ability to ask questions, current situation, etc. all help us to understand what the speaker means when they use certain words or phrases.  You have none of that when reading a person’s words.

For me, the biggest eye wakening aspect of this has come from reading Scripture, listening to homilies about Scripture, or even praying prayers.  Most recently, a good friend corrected me with the Memorare.  I have a habit of praying “inspired with this confidence” rather than “by this confidence”.   Why? Because it made no sense to me to say “by” when it was I who now had the confidence.   I never considered that there is another definition for the word confidence.  Now it made sense, but it took someone who is devoted to the Blessed Mother, studied and prayed about her and the prayers to her, for me to even consider that I was interpreting the prayer wrong, much less, understand the writer may have had another perspective.

There have been many, many, many other situations where I thought I totally understood a passage or prayer only to reread and get a whole new perspective on the possible intention or meaning behind it.  The realization of this has reinforsed my thinking on 2 levels.

1. This is the reason I trust the Catholic Church.  Tradition both with the small and capital T helps maintain the true and actual intentions and meanings behind Scripture, as well as, Jesus’ and the Apostles’ teachings.  Our Priests are well trained in those traditions and teachings.  They have been called by God to impart that message to us.  I am ill-equipped to understand on my own and rely on the fact that the Holy Spirit is guiding and protecting the Church.
2. Interpretation of words, even when being spoken, and especially when translated from someone’s native tongue, can be misconstrued or totally lost in their intent. This is more prevalent in the written word for the reasons mentioned above.  Even when things seem black and white, they may not be.  I have always maintained that we never truly know what is in the hearts of others or their true intentions.  I am not even sure we always know ourselves.

Just yesterday a person said to me that I “know so much”, and another said I “answered so well as a theologian”.  In the first case, it was simply that I am blessed with an attention to detail and notice things about others that are not necessarily obvious.  Therefore, I was able to shed some light on a situation.  The second was simply I asked the Holy Spirit before responding.  In these 2 cases, people’s perspective about me were based on my words, one vocal, the other written.  In both cases, the person interpreted my words based on their perspective.  In replaying in my mind both situations, they could have easily had a different perspective (based on similar past situations).  This just reinforced to me the need to never think I know a person or their intentions, and that words can mean different things to different people.  Therefore, it is the actions that count, not the words.   However, if the words match their actions, you can rely on those words.