One of the things I love about the iPhone is a feature that is part of iMessage, the texting platform for iPhones. IMessage itself is great, because you can use it over wi-fi, without using your data. This has come in helpful when I’m in a foreign country and want to text someone a message, but don’t want to use International Roaming. But within iMessage there’s an optional feature called a “read receipt,” which, as the name implies, allows you to see if someone has read your text. While I love the feature, others, especially young men in high school and college, aren’t always as enthusiastic about it, and often keep it off, because there’s no excuse or fewer excuses not to respond when someone, say your girlfriend, texts you. Still, I have found myself wondering, if friends don’t have read receipts turned on, or if they don’t have an iPhone, if they received my text or not, and if they are ignoring me or not.
Today in our readings we hear about faith. As we heard in our second reading, “Faith is…evidence of things not seen.” And the author continues to talk about Abraham and his displays of faith: leaving his homeland in Ur; the conception of his son, Isaac; and then trusting in God even when God asked Abraham to sacrifice that same son, Isaac. I think it’s fair to say that we have a decent number of parishioners who are past the child-bearing age. But put yourself in Abraham’s shoes: imagine that you had no heir, and then God tells you that you will conceive. You would probably laugh like Sarah did when she heard the message.
And then imagine even further, when that same God tells you to sacrifice Isaac. We have the benefit of knowing that God stopped Abraham from completing the sacrifice, but Abraham didn’t know that. And yet, he trusted God, another way of saying that Abraham had faith.
There are no read receipts when it comes to prayer. Prayer is an act of faith, trusting that our loving God hears us and will answer our prayers. How many prayers have been said in this building over the decades? Of courses there are the Masses, where we pray and offer our lives to the Father through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit, but also the prayers that are written in the prayerbook by the statues of Mary and Joseph, the prayers that accompany the lit candles, the prayers said during Adoration, and the prayers from people who simply come into the church to spend a few minutes with Jesus.
Sometimes, like with the birth of Isaac, we know our prayers have been answered. Sometimes, they may seem to float into the air and disappear, and we don’t know if God answered them or not. I think especially of the prayers that we say that our deceased loved ones are in heaven: we pray for that to be true, but unless they are canonized, we take it on faith and hope that they are with God for eternity. And while we’re unsure, we continue to pray for them and offer Masses for them in case they’re in Purgatory and need our assistance to be welcomed into heaven.
The Church has also been praying, since the beginning, for Jesus to return. We may not use the Aramaic words, Marana tha, which means, “Come, Lord Jesus,” but the constant prayer of the Church is that Jesus return and put a final end to sin and death so that we no longer have to suffer through this valley of tears. We maybe have even asked, “Lord, can’t you come back now?” And it takes faith to believe that Jesus will return, and He will right every wrong, punish every offense, and judge the world with justice. Until then, we keep waiting, with faith, for the Master to return.
And we do our best not to beat His servants while we wait. This doesn’t only mean avoiding physical violence against the children of God, but doing our best to treat others like Jesus did. We don’t grow lax because we’re not sure that Jesus heard us, but stay with our daily habits of prayer, our weekly penitential practices, spreading the Gospel by word and deed, and our Sunday worship of God at Mass.
And we stay with that for probably one of two reasons. The first reason is not the fulness of the relationship God wants with us, but is a childish way of responding to God. And that reason is we don’t want to be punished. I say childish because it’s like a child who doesn’t want to clean his or her room, but does so in order not to get grounded or a spanking. We get the job done, but it’s done merely out of obligation. The second reason is that we love God, and that we want to please Him because we love Him. This is an adult way because true love always seeks to make the beloved happy. And nothing makes God happier than spending time with Him, especially in prayer, but also in acts of charity and service.
In our prayer, whether our prayers of need or our desire for Jesus to return, there is no read receipt. On this side of eternity, our relationship with God is always an exercise of faith. But, follow the faith of Abraham, our Father in Faith, to trust that God will give us every good gift that we need, and that Jesus will return one day to make all things right in Him.
