The Unanswered Message
Updated: Sep 2
“He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”John 1:11
You sent it some time ago. A few words. A question. A simple reaching out.
The reply has not come. The screen stays the same. There is no new notification. There is no small sign that the message was even seen.
At first you check once or twice. Then you try not to check at all. The silence begins to take on a weight of its own.
Some messages remain unanswered for ordinary reasons: busyness, tiredness, a phone left in another room. Others stay unanswered for reasons we will never know.
Jesus knew this kind of silence. He spoke to people who walked away. He asked questions that received no reply. He came close to his own, and not all of them came close in return. In the garden he waited for his friends and found them asleep. The Gospel does not tidy this up. It lets us see that even the Word himself lived among unanswered words.
Not every sentence we offer finds a home. Not every gesture is returned. This is part of the ordinary cost of being human, and of trying to love without a guarantee.
You do not need to send another message. You do not need to demand an explanation. You can let the unanswered words rest where they are.
At Mass the same mystery is close to us. Christ speaks, and he does not force the answer. The Word is proclaimed whether we are ready or not. His Body is offered whether we feel close or far. We also know the other side of this silence: the prayers we have sent up and not yet seen answered, the questions we have carried for years. The liturgy does not pretend that every message comes back at once. It places us before a God who has himself stood in the quiet, and who still keeps his heart open.
Some silences are not rejections. They are simply silences.
And you remain free to keep your own heart open without waiting for the screen to change.