Ambassadors for Christ - Ash Wednesday

 

What are you doing a week from tomorrow?

If you’re like most of us, you’re doing the same thing tomorrow and next week and the week after that. No-one is heading to Hawaii, there are no birthday parties on our calendars, and nobody’s asked you over for dinner.

We all agree that an empty calendar is a disappointment. But it’s also an opportunity—an opportunity to have the best Lent ever.

“Best Lent Ever” is a powerful phrase coined by Matthew Kelly, the popular Catholic speaker and writer. Every year he offers a video series to help people grow in Lent through prayer.

This year, he says “it’s not what you give up this Lent, it’s who you become.”

Can I ask you to look at this in a slightly different way? The invitation sounds a little bit me-centered.  Now that’s okay—Christians need to grow in personal responsibility through prayer, penance, and almsgiving. But what if we zoomed out and said it’s not what we give up this Lent, it’s who we help?

It’s not a huge stretch to change our focus from me to we, if I can use a phrase from the unfortunate Kielburger brothers.  The second reading puts it right in front of us: we are ambassadors. We are people on a mission. And our own holiness can’t be separated from the needs of others.

 It’s hard to think of a time when people needed people more than they do right now. A Lent centered on self-improvement alone just doesn’t quite cut it.

This year we'd better not follow the readings too closely. If the prophet Joel’s words inspire us to assemble a congregation of the young and old, brides and grooms, we will get shut down by the health authority. If we urge and entreat our friends and neighbours in imitation of St. Paul, they will shut us down.

Instead, I suggest we offer people what they need—a path to return to the Lord, a path to return to his Church, and a path out of the isolation imposed by the pandemic.

Fr. Jeff and I were delighted to see many familiar faces as we distributed ashes today, and Holy Communion on Sundays. But there are many faces we don’t see, even on Zoom. Some are uncomfortable with the computer, some don’t drive, while others may be nervous just going out.

Would you be Christ’s ambassadors to these parishioners this Lent?

Instead of giving up, would you reach out?

There’s only so much the parish can do without the help of dozens or hundreds of you. You have a network of people you know from church and haven’t been in touch with since the lockdown. Could you phone or email them? Could you send a card?

Of course, you don’t know who’s been away from parish activities, so in order to connect with the people who need a connection most, you’ll need to work at this. But if Lent isn’t a time for dedicated service, what is?

On Sunday, Fr. Jeff will suggest some of the practical ways we can invite people to be part of parish life as it is at present.

Everyone knows the three-legged stool on which Lent rests: prayer, penance, and charity. Becoming a parish ambassador checks all three boxes. Obviously, what I’m proposing is an act of charity—one that not only offers emotional support but spiritual help too.

Of course, we must pray for God to guide us when deciding to whom we should reach out, and pray for those people when we do connect, and afterwards. We can even tell them we’re doing that.

But I think this Lenten project also ticks the box marked penance, at least for many of us. We can feel nervous reaching out—we might be uncomfortable contacting people we don’t know very well.

What’s wrong with that? What is fasting, what is giving up coffee or alcohol, but making ourselves feel uncomfortable for a purpose?

Maybe it’s not what we give up, but who we become: ambassadors for Christ, helping our brothers and sisters in the parish rediscover fellowship and joy this difficult Lent.