An Ambassador for Christ: Homily for Ash Wednesday, 2026

The challenge of being an ambassador is that you do not represent yourself, but someone else. Ash Wednesday is a time where we think about whether we represent ourselves or Christ? Whether we do things for show, or for Christ? Readings for Today.

An Ambassador for Christ

John Adams, the second president of the United States, became president after having a job he absolutely hated. That was being vice president. Why? It was not that John Adams was thirsting for power. That wasn’t what made the job frustrating. What made the job so frustrating for him was that he wasn’t able to participate in any of the discussions that were occurring in the Senate before him.

In fact, what happened was that he only participated in a very small way whenever there was a tie. And quite frankly, it was the president, George Washington, who set the tone. Even harder, I think, for John Adams, I don’t know that it ever happened, although he did go to Paris on a delegation, would be to be an ambassador, to represent someone else, to be sent on behalf of someone else, to present the ideas of someone else, to live the expectations of someone else.

St. Paul, in the second reading we heard today, refers to us as ambassadors. Ambassadors for Christ. It is very important to know that when we are an ambassador for Christ, we don’t bring our own agenda. We bring the agenda of Christ. We live in a perfect way, or in a particular way, hopefully a perfect way. We live according to someone else’s agenda, that we have come to believe is so powerful, so strong, and so good that it is a way of life for everyone.

But we represent Christ, and we know that we don’t always do that well. In the first reading from the book of the Prophet Joel, we see someone who is really speaking about the fact that they have not done things well, that the people to whom he is speaking need to return to the Lord. The people with whom he is speaking need not only to return, but to return completely to the Lord with their whole heart, fasting, weeping, mourning.

We are at the beginning of this season of Lent, and if you were attentive to the opening prayer, I won’t ask you what it said. This is the beginning of a campaign of Christian service. That was a line in the opening prayer. What a powerful line to describe, quite frankly, anything that’s a liturgical season. A campaign of Christian service. And that line in the opening prayer, I think, is something that helps us to see what it means to be an ambassador for Christ.

It is really recognizing that every other human being we encounter is an invitation to get to know Christ, because every other human being is made in his image and likeness. And we live in a world, perhaps more today than ever, although every age kind of says that about themselves, where we need more authentic witnesses to Christ. That too often what can happen is that we forget we’re ambassadors, that we forget we represent someone else in the witness of our lives. And we don’t want to be on a campaign of Christian service.

Even if we’re not aware, too often it is the case in our lives, at least I know it is in my life, that my campaign is not about Christian service. It is about service to DePorres. It is about living my life the way I want to, without reference to Christ, the teacher, the master, the Savior.

And so this is why we come here today on Ash Wednesday, to acknowledge that we fail, that we’re selfish, that we don’t consider others the way we should, that sometimes we’re greedy, sometimes in our life we don’t want to do anything nice for someone else, or that we don’t have time in our lives for prayer because we’re simply too busy. Ash Wednesday is that time where everything that we might think about our life is made clear about what we should think about our life.

And the gospel is also something that’s very important about our beginning during this season of Lent. The gospel tells us that the goal of being Christian, the goal of this campaign of Christian service, is not to win awards. It’s not to be recognized for being tremendous people. It is not to do things only so that we can prove that we’re good people. It is about a relationship with Jesus.

How often did we read in the Gospels that Jesus went off by himself to pray? He didn’t seem to capture the momentum, so to speak. When things were going tremendously well and the Apostles are telling him how great things are and that everybody wants to see him, he says, “No, we we need to go elsewhere.” He doesn’t embrace the success for its own sake. He sees how important it is to develop relationship.

It’s well known that the three major themes of the season of Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. And each of these things teaches us something really important about our lives. That we could be wonderful people. All kinds of people that don’t believe do great and admirable things for people in the world. And thanks be to God, they do. But for us, all of this arises from a relationship. A relationship with Jesus.

And so in whatever you do for this season of Lent, think about how you can deepen your relationship with Jesus in prayer. Because that really is the significant starting point. Because where Christ’s ambassadors. And to be an ambassador means we have to get to know the person that we are representing. We need sacrifice in our lives. I know that things are askew in my own life when I begin looking at the ads in the newspaper. Because I don’t need anything.

And I’ve learned that if I’m feeling like I should look at the ads in the newspaper, it’s an invitation to prayer. That something has gotten askew. Or that I have forgotten the value of sacrifice. Fasting. Fasting has a long tradition that dates all the way back to the New Testament. That we sacrifice because that helps us to be aware of the areas where we might be greedy. Or we might think that we don’t have enough.

I think of that when people talk about all the money we’re sending to the rest of the world and not paying attention to our poor. It’s absolutely not true. Most of what we send to the rest of the world is military. And it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t care for the poor in this country, but it more so doesn’t mean that we can ignore the plight of the poor in other places. And sacrifice helps us to remember that.

To give that up so that we recognize I don’t need this. I don’t need the latest iPhone. Or I don’t need the best car. And generosity is what helps us to recognize that we have many abundant blessings in our lives. In so many ways, when we help others, we begin to realize that we receive more from our gift to others than we’ve given. That they’ve taught us more about how to live life than we realized without interaction with them. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. They’re the best way to learn how to become an ambassador and witness to the world the power of Christ’s love.

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