The traditions of
Ash Wednesday came up as a part of the Lenten customs during the
late 5th century. Penitence and fasting are two of the key
distinctives of Lent. Lent in the Western Churches was
originally a period of forty days of fasting and penitence,
readying the Christian soul for the great feast on the ensuing
Easter Sunday. This is held as a period of sober reflection,
self-examination, and spiritual redirection. The Lent begins on
Ash Wednesday and goes for forty days excluding the Sundays.
Because Sundays are always the joyful celebration of the
Resurrection. It ends on the Good Friday. However, Lent is a
forty two day period in Eastern Churches and begins on the
Monday preceding the Easter by forty two days. This makes it
clear that they don't have Ash Wednesday.
In time the emphasis of the season turned from preparation for
baptism to more penitential aspects of penance. The sorrows and
sufferings of Christ were shared by the self-denying Christian.
Persons guilty of notorious sins spent the time performing
public penances. Only at the end of Lent were they publicly
reconciled with the Church. During the Middle Ages the sinners
were accepted back in an elaborate ceremony.
Apart from getting ashed, the tradition is to pray, and go for
fasting as a preparation for Lent. Wearing sack cloth and
sprinkling the head with ashes was an ancient sign of
repentance. The Biblical custom for repentance was to fast, wear
sackcloth, sit in dust and ashes, and put dust and ashes on
one's head. But the Bible does not specify the Ash Wednesday
rites as such. In earlier ages a penitential procession often
followed the rite of the distribution of the ashes, but this is
not now prescribed.
Unlike the old days, we no longer normally wear sackcloth or sit
in dust and ashes, the customs of fasting and putting ashes on
one's forehead as a sign of mourning and penance have survived
to this day. The Church has never chosen to make it or any other
specific day the definitive commemoration of the concept of
repentance. Still it is a deacon. Some churches observe it with
distribution of ashes, reading prayers of repentance, and with
other services offered from the pulpit.
This
custom entered the church from Judaism. And is observed on Ash
Wednesday, that marks the onset of a period of sober reflection,
self-examination, and spiritual redirection. At first only public
penitence received the ashes. They were made to appear barefooted at the
church and perform penances for their sins. Friends and relatives began
to accompany them, perhaps in sympathy and in the knowledge that no man
is free from sin, and gradually the ashes were given to the whole
congregation.
On this day all the faithful according to ancient custom are exhorted to
approach the altar before the beginning of Mass, and there the priest,
dipping his thumb into palm ashes previously blessed, marks the forehead
of each the sign of the cross, saying the words: "Remember man that thou
art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." In case of clerics it is upon
the place of the tonsure. The saying and the act are meant for reminding
us that man is mortal. This means we are dust and it is dust to which we
shall return. The ashes used in this ceremony are made by burning the
remains of the palms blessed on the Palm Sunday of the previous year. In
the blessing of the ashes four prayers are used, all of them ancient.
The ashes are sprinkled with holy water and fumigated with incense. The
celebrant himself, be he bishop or cardinal, receives, either standing
or seated, the ashes from some other priest, usually the highest in
dignity of those present.
