Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. On that day, Catholics are marked with ashes on their foreheads in the form of the Cross as a public proclamation of their need for a savior.
Symbolizing the dust that man was created from and will return to, ashes serve as a reminder of man’s mortality and his need to repent from sin. The ashes also call to mind God’s mercy and point toward the Resurrection.
As the priest traces the cross on each person’s forehead with ashes, he says, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” He may also say, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”
The ashes used on Ash Wednesday come from burned and blessed palm from the last Sunday of the previous season of Lent, Palm Sunday.
Ashes should be received during Mass, but since ashes are a sacramental, it is not a requirement to be Catholic to receive ashes.
Though not a Holy Day of Obligation, Ash Wednesday is a day of penitential prayer and fasting. Catholics are obligated to to abstain from eating meat and to fast by eating fewer and smaller meals on that day.
Ashes are a sign of repentence:
Ash Wednesday confronts the fear of death:
We are marked with ashes in the shape of the Cross:
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Genesis 2: 19
Ashes represent mourning and repentance throughout the Bible:
Only the love of God can sustain dust as a living being:
The somber future and triumphant past of the ashes:
Death is the end of earthly life. Our lives are measured by time, in the course of which we change, grow old and, as with all living beings on earth, death seems like the normal end of life. That aspect of death lends urgency to our lives: remembering our mortality helps us realize that we have only a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfillment: Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, . . . before the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1007
A reminder to repent:
A day of prayer and penance:
On this day, marked by the austere symbol of ashes, we enter the Season of Lent, beginning a spiritual journey that prepares us for celebrating worthily the Easter Mysteries. The blessed ashes imposed upon our forehead are a sign that reminds us of our condition as creatures, that invites us to repent, and to intensify our commitment to convert, to follow the Lord ever more closely.
Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, 9 March 2011
The beginning of a special season for Christians:
Ash Wednesday falls on a different date each year:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Trusting the Church’s wellsprings of prayer:
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