WHAT IS ASH WEDNESDAY

Ash Wednesday is one of the most popular and important holy days in
the liturgical calendar. Ash Wednesday opens Lent, a season of fasting and
prayer.

Ash Wednesday takes place 46 days before Easter

Sunday, and is chiefly observed by Catholics, although many other Christians
observe it too.

Ash Wednesday comes from the ancient Jewish tradition of penance

and fasting. The practice includes the wearing of ashes on the head. The ashes
symbolize the dust from which God made us. As the priest applies the ashes
to a person's forehead, he speaks the words: "Remember that you are dust,
and to dust you shall return."

Alternatively, the priest may speak the words, "Repent and believe in
the Gospel."

Ashes also symbolize grief, in this case, grief that we have sinned and
caused division from God.

Writings from the Second-century Church refer to the wearing of ashes

as a sign of penance.

Priests administer ashes during Mass and all are invited to accept the
ashes as a visible symbol of penance. Even non-Christians and the
excommunicated are welcome to receive the ashes. The ashes are made from
blessed palm branches, taken from the previous year's palm Sunday Mass.

It is important to remember that Ash Wednesday is a day of penitential

prayer and fasting. Some faithful take the rest of the day off work and remain
home. It is generally inappropriate to dine out, to shop, or to go about in
public after receiving the ashes. Feasting is highly inappropriate. Small
children, the elderly and sick are exempt from this observance.

Jazher Rave L. Limbungan – Grade 9

 It is not required that a person wear the ashes
for the rest of the day, and they may be washed off after Mass. However, many
people keep the ashes as a reminder until the evening.

Recently, movements have developed that involve pastors distributing

ashes to passersby in public places. This isn't considered taboo, but Catholics
should know this practice is distinctly Protestant. Catholics should still
receive ashes within the context of Mass.

In some cases, ashes may be delivered by a priest or a family member

to those who are sick or shut-in.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Season of Lent. It is a

season of penance, reflection, and fasting which prepares us for Christ's
Resurrection on Easter Sunday, through which we attain redemption.

Why we receive the ashes

Following the example of the Ninevites, who did

penance in sackcloth and ashes, our foreheads are marked with ashes to
humble our hearts and reminds us that life passes away on Earth. We
remember this when we are told

"Remember, Man is dust, and unto dust you shall return."

Jazher Rave L. Limbungan – Grade 9

 Ashes are a symbol of penance made sacramental by the blessing of the
Church, and they help us develop a spirit of humility and sacrifice.

The distribution of ashes comes from a ceremony of ages past.

Christians who had committed grave faults performed public penance. On
Ash Wednesday, the Bishop blessed the hair shirts which they were to wear
during the forty days of penance, and sprinkled over them ashes made from
the palms from the previous year. Then, while the faithful recited the Seven
Penitential Psalms, the penitents were turned out of the church because of
their sins -- just as Adam, the first man, was turned out of Paradise because
of his disobedience. The penitents did not enter the church again until
Maundy Thursday after having won reconciliation by the toil of forty days'
penance and sacramental absolution. Later, all Christians, whether public or
secret penitents, came to receive ashes out of devotion. In earlier times, the
distribution of ashes was followed by a penitential procession.

The Ashes

The ashes are made from the blessed palms used in the Palm Sunday
celebration of the previous year. The ashes are christened with Holy Water
and are scented by exposure to incense. While the ashes symbolize penance
and contrition, they are also a reminder that God is gracious and merciful to
those who call on Him with repentant hearts. His Divine mercy is of utmost
importance during the season of Lent, and the Church calls on us to seek that
mercy during the entire Lenten season with reflection, prayer and penance.

HISTORY OF ASH WEDNESDAY

Ash Wednesday is a Christian holy day of prayer, fasting, even if it is
not a holy day of obligation [2] It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday and falls on
the first day of Lent,[3] the six weeks of penitence before Easter. Ash
Wednesday is traditionally observed by Western Christians,
including Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Old
Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, some Baptists,[4] and most Latin
Rite Roman Catholics. [note 1]

Because it is the first day of Lent, many Christians, on Ash Wednesday,

often begin marking a Lenten calendar, praying a Lenten daily devotional, and
abstaining from a luxury that they will not partake of until Easter arrives.[7]
Ash Wednesday derives its name from the placing of
repentance ashes on the foreheads of participants to either the words
"Repent, and believe in the Gospel" or the dictum "Remember that you are
dust, and to dust you shall return."[8] The ashes may be prepared by
burning palm leaves from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebrations.

Jazher Rave L. Limbungan – Grade 9

 Contents

 1Observances
o 1.1Fasting and abstinence
o 1.2Ashes
 1.2.1Ashes to Go
o 1.3Commination Office
o 1.4Low church ceremonies
o 1.5Regional customs
 2Biblical significance of ashes
 3Christian use of ashes
 4Lent
 5Dates
 6Observing churches
 7Gallery
 8National No Smoking Day
 9Notes
 10References

Observances
Fasting and abstinence
Main article: Fasting § Christianity
Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness (Jésus tenté dans le désert), James
Tissot, Brooklyn Museum
Many Christian denominations emphasize fasting, as well as
abstinence during the season of Lent and in particular, on its first day, Ash
Wednesday. The First Council of Nicæa spoke of Lent as a period of fasting for
forty days, in preparation for Eastertide.[9] In many places, Christians
historically abstained from food for a whole day until the evening, and at
sunset, Western Christians traditionally broke the Lenten fast, which is often
known as the Black Fast.[10][11] In India and Pakistan, many Christians
continue this practice of fasting until sunset on Ash Wednesday and Good
Friday, with some fasting in this manner throughout the whole season of
Lent.[12]
In the Roman Catholic Church, Ash Wednesday is observed
by fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance – a day of contemplating
one's transgressions. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, Roman Catholics
between the ages of 18 and 59 (whose health enables them to do so) are
permitted to consume one full meal, along with two smaller meals, which
together should not equal the full meal. Some Catholics will go beyond the
minimum obligations put forth by the Church and undertake a complete fast
or a bread and water fast until sunset. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are
also days of abstinence from meat (mammals and fowl), as are all Fridays
during Lent.[13] Some Roman Catholics continue fasting throughout Lent, as
was the Church's traditional requirement,[14] concluding only after the
celebration of the Easter Vigil. Where the Ambrosian Rite is observed, the day

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of fasting and abstinence is postponed to the first Friday in the Ambrosian
Lent, nine days later.[15]
A number of Lutheran parishes teach communicants to fast on Ash
Wednesday, with some people choosing to continue doing so throughout the
entire season of Lent, especially on Good Friday.[16][17][18][19] One Lutheran
congregation's A Handbook for the Discipline of Lent recommends that the
faithful "Fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday with only one simple meal
during the day, usually without meat".[20]
In the Church of England, and throughout much of the Worldwide
Anglican Communion, the entire forty days of Lent are designated days of
fasting, while the Fridays are also designated as days of abstinence in
the 1662 Book of Common Prayer,[21] with the Traditional Saint Augustine's
Prayer Book: A Book of Devotion for Members of the Anglican
Communion defining "Fasting, usually meaning not more than a light
breakfast, one full meal, and one half meal, on the forty days of Lent."[22] The
same text defines abstinence as refraining from flesh meat on all Fridays of
the Church Year, except for those during Christmastide.[22]
The historic Methodist homilies regarding the Sermon on the
Mount stress the importance of the Lenten fast, which begins on Ash
Wednesday.[23] The United Methodist Church therefore states that:
There is a strong biblical base for fasting, particularly during the 40
days of Lent leading to the celebration of Easter. Jesus, as part of his spiritual
preparation, went into the wilderness and fasted 40 days and 40 nights,
according to the Gospels.[24]
Rev. Jacqui King, the minister of Nu Faith Community United
Methodist Church in Houston explained the philosophy of fasting during Lent
as "I'm not skipping a meal because in place of that meal I'm actually dining
with God".[25]
The Reformed Church in America describes Ash Wednesday as a day
"focused on prayer, fasting, and repentance."[2] The liturgy for Ash Wednesday
thus contains the following "Invitation to Observe a Lenten Discipline" read
by the presider:[26]
We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance
and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ. I invite
you, therefore, in the name of Christ, to observe a Holy Lent, by self-
examination and penitence, by prayer and fasting, by practicing works of love,
and by reading and reflecting on God's Holy Word.[26]
Many of the Churches in the Reformed tradition retained the Lenten
fast in its entirety, although it was made voluntary, rather than obligatory.[27]
Ashes
A priest marks a cross of ashes on a worshipper's forehead, the
prevailing form in English-speaking countries.[28]
Ashes are ceremonially placed on the heads of Christians on Ash
Wednesday, either by being sprinkled over their heads or, in English-speaking

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countries, more often by being marked on their foreheads as a visible cross.
The words (based on Genesis 3:19) used traditionally to accompany this
gesture are, "Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris."
("Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.") This
custom is credited to Pope Gregory I the Great (c. 540–604).[29] In the 1969
revision of the Roman Rite, an alternative formula (based on Mark 1:15) was
introduced and given first place "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" and the
older formula was translated as "Remember that you are dust, and to dust
you shall return." The old formula, based on the words spoken to Adam and
Eveafter their sin,[30] reminds worshippers of their sinfulness and mortality
and thus, implicitly, of their need to repent in time.[31] The newer formula
makes explicit what was only implicit in the old.

A deacon burning palm fronds from the previous Palm Sunday for Ash
Wednesday
Various manners of placing the ashes on worshippers' heads are in use
within the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the two most common being
to use the ashes to make a cross on the forehead and sprinkling the ashes
over the crown of the head. Originally, the ashes were strewn over men's
heads, but, probably because women had their heads covered in church, were
placed on the foreheads of women.[32] In the Catholic Church the manner of
imposing ashes depends largely on local custom, since no fixed rule has been
laid down.[28] Although the account of Ælfric of Eynsham shows that in about
the year 1000 the ashes were "strewn" on the head,[33] the marking of the
forehead is the method that now prevails in English-speaking countries and
is the only one envisaged in the Occasional Offices of the Anglican Church of
Papua New Guinea, a publication described as "noticeably Anglo-Catholic in
character".[34] In its ritual of "Blessing of Ashes", this states that "the ashes
are blessed at the beginning of the Eucharist; and after they have been blessed
they are placed on the forehead of the clergy and people."[34]The Ash
Wednesday ritual of the Church of England, Mother Church of the Anglican
Communion, contains "The Imposition of Ashes" in its Ash Wednesday
liturgy.[35] On Ash Wednesday, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, traditionally
takes part in a penitential procession from the Church of Saint Anselm to the
Basilica of Santa Sabina, where, in accordance with the custom in Italy and
many other countries, ashes are sprinkled on his head, not smudged on his
forehead, and he places ashes on the heads of others in the same way.[36]

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A woman receives a cross of ashes on Ash Wednesday outside an Episcopal
church
The Anglican ritual, used in Papua New Guinea states that, after the
blessing of the ashes, "the priest marks his own forehead and then the
foreheads of the servers and congregation who come and kneel, or stand,
where they normally receive the Blessed Sacrament."[34] The corresponding
Catholic ritual in the Roman Missal for celebration within Mass merely
states: "Then the Priest places ashes on the head of those present who come
to him, and says to each one ..."[37] Pre-1970 editions had much more
elaborate instructions about the order in which the participants were to
receive the ashes, but again without any indication of the form of placing the
ashes on the head.[38]
The 1969 revision of the Roman Rite inserted into the Mass the solemn
ceremony of blessing ashes and placing them on heads, but also explicitly
envisaged a similar solemn ceremony outside of Mass.[37] The Book of
Blessings contains a simple rite.[28] While the solemn rite would normally be
carried out within a church building, the simple rite could appropriately be
used almost anywhere. While only a priest or deacon may bless the ashes,
laypeople may do the placing of the ashes on a person's head. Even in the
solemn rite, lay men or women may assist the priest in distributing the ashes.
In addition, laypeople take blessed ashes left over after the collective ceremony
and place them on the head of the sick or of others who are unable to attend
the blessing.[28][39] (In 2014, Anglican Liverpool Cathedral likewise offered to
impose ashes within the church without a solemn ceremony.)[40]
In addition, those who attend such Catholic services, whether in a
church or elsewhere, traditionally take blessed ashes home with them to place
on the heads of other members of the family,[41] and it is recommended to have
envelopes available to facilitate this practice.[42] At home the ashes are then
placed with little or no ceremony.
Unlike its discipline regarding sacraments, the Catholic Church does
not exclude from receiving sacramentals, such as the placing of ashes on the
head, those who are not Catholics and perhaps not even baptized.[39] Even
those who have been excommunicated and are therefore forbidden
to celebrate sacramentals are not forbidden to receive them.[43] After
describing the blessing, the rite of Blessing and Distribution of Ashes (within
Mass) states: "Then the Priest places ashes on the heads of all those present
who come to him."[37] The Catholic Church does not limit distribution of
blessed ashes to within church buildings and has suggested the holding of
celebrations in shopping centres, nursing homes, and factories.[42] Such

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celebrations presume preparation of an appropriate area and include readings
from Scripture (at least one) and prayers, and are somewhat shorter if the
ashes are already blessed.[44]
The Catholic Church and the Methodist Church say that the ashes
should be those of palm branches blessed at the previous year's Palm
Sunday service,[37][45] while a Church of England publication says they "may
be made" from the burnt palm crosses of the previous year.[34][35] These
sources do not speak of adding anything to the ashes other than, for the
Catholic liturgy, a sprinkling with holy water when blessing them. An Anglican
website speaks of mixing the ashes with a small amount of holy water or olive
oil as a fixative.[46]
Where ashes are placed on the head by smudging the forehead with a
sign of the cross, many Christians choose to keep the mark visible throughout
the day. The churches have not imposed this as an obligatory rule, and the
ashes may even be wiped off immediately after receiving them;[47][48] but some
Christian leaders, such as Lutheran pastor Richard P. Bucher and Catholic
bishop Kieran Conry, recommend it as a public profession of
faith.[49][50] Morgan Guyton, a Methodist pastor and leader in the Red-Letter
Christian movement, encourages Christians to wear their ashed cross
throughout the day as an exercise of religious freedom.[51]
Ashes to Go

Two Anglican priests distribute ashes to passerby in the American city

of Boca Raton as part of the Ashes to Go movement
Since 2007, some members of major Christian Churches, including
Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists, have participated in the
Ashes to Go program, in which clergy go outside of their churches to public
places, such as downtowns, sidewalks and train stations, to distribute ashes
to passersby,[52][53][54] even to people waiting in their cars for a stoplight to
change.[55] The Anglican priest Emily Mellott of Calvary Church
in Lombard took up the idea and turned it into a movement, stated that the
practice was also an act of evangelism.[56][57]Anglicans and Catholics in parts
of the United Kingdom such as Sunderland, are offering Ashes to Go together:
Marc Lyden-Smith, the priest of Saint Mary's Church, stated that
the ecumenical effort is a "tremendous witness in our city, with Catholics and
Anglicans working together to start the season of Lent, perhaps reminding
those who have fallen away from the Church, or have never been before, that
the Christian faith is alive and active in Sunderland."[52] The Catholic Student
Association of Kent State University, based at the University Parish Newman

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Center, offered ashes to university students who were going through the
Student Center of that institution in 2012,[58] and Douglas Clark of St.
Matthew's Roman Catholic Church in Statesboro, among others, have
participated in Ashes to Go.[59][60] On Ash Wednesday 2017, Father Paddy
Mooney, the priest of St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in the Irish town
of Glenamaddy, set up an Ashes to Go station through which commuters
could drive and receive ashes from their car; the parish church also had
"drive-through prayers during Lent with people submitting requests into a box
left in the church grounds without having to leave their car".[61] Reverend Trey
Hall, pastor of Urban Village United Methodist Church, stated that when his
local church offered ashes in Chicago "nearly 300 people received ashes –
including two people who were waiting in their car for a stoplight to
change."[55] In 2013, churches not only in the United States, but also at least
one church each in the United Kingdom, Canada and South Africa,
participated in Ashes to Go.[62] Outside of their church building, Saint
Stephen Martyr Lutheran Church in Canton offered Ashes to Go for "believers
whose schedules make it difficult to attend a traditional service" in 2016.[63] In
the United States itself 34 states and the District of Columbia had at least
one church taking part. Most of these churches (parishes) were Episcopal, but
there were also several Methodist churches, as well as Presbyterian and
Catholic churches.[64]
Commination Office

St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis, Tennessee on Ash Wednesday

2011 (the veiled altar cross and purple paraments are customary during Lent)
Robin Knowles Wallace states that the traditional Ash
Wednesday church service includes Psalm 51 (the Miserere), prayers of
confession and the sign of ashes.[65] No single one of the traditional services
contains all of these elements. The Anglican church's traditional Ash
Wednesday service, titled A Commination,[66] contains the first two elements,
but not the third. On the other hand, the Catholic Church's traditional service
has the blessing and distribution of ashes but, while prayers of confession
and recitation of Psalm 51 (the first psalm at Lauds on all penitential days,
including Ash Wednesday) are a part of its general traditional Ash Wednesday
liturgy,[67] they are not associated specifically with the rite of blessing the
ashes. The rite of blessing has acquired an untraditional weak association
with that particular psalm only since 1970, when it was inserted into the
celebration of Mass, at which a few verses of Psalm 51 are used as
a responsorial psalm. Coincidentally, it was only about the same time that in
some areas Anglicanism resumed the rite of ashes.

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 In the mid-16th century, the first Book of Common Prayer removed the
ceremony of the ashes from the liturgy of the Church of England and replaced
it with what would later be called the Commination Office.[68] In that 1549
edition, the rite was headed: "The First Day of Lent: Commonly Called Ash-
Wednesday".[69] The ashes ceremony was not forbidden, but was not included
in the church's official liturgy.[70] Its place was taken by reading biblical curses
of God against sinners, to each of which the people were directed to respond
with Amen.[71][72]The text of the "Commination or Denouncing of God's Anger
and Judgments against Sinners" begins: "In the primitive Church there was
a godly discipline, that, at the beginning of Lent, such persons as stood
convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance, and punished in this
world, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others,
admonished by their example, might be the more afraid to offend. Instead
whereof, until the said discipline may be restored again, (which is much to be
wished,) it is thought good that at this time (in the presence of you all) should
be read the general sentences of God's cursing against impenitent
sinners".[73] In line with this, Joseph Hooper Maude wrote that the
establishment of The Commination was due to a desire of the reformers "to
restore the primitive practice of public penance in church". He further stated
that "the sentences of the greater excommunication" within The
Commination corresponded to those used in the ancient Church.[74] The
Anglican Church's Ash Wednesday liturgy, he wrote, also traditionally
included the Miserere, which, along with "what follows" in the rest of the
service (lesser Litany, Lord's Prayer, three prayers for pardon and final
blessing), "was taken from the Sarum services for Ash Wednesday".[74] From
the Sarum Rite practice in England the service took Psalm 51 and some
prayers that in the Sarum Missal accompanied the blessing and distribution
of ashes.[67][75] In the Sarum Rite, the Miserere psalm was one of the seven
penitential psalms that were recited at the beginning of the ceremony.[76] In
the 20th century, the Episcopal Church introduced three prayers from the
Sarum Rite and omitted the Commination Office from its liturgy.[70]
Low church ceremonies
In some of the low church traditions, other practices are sometimes
added or substituted, as other ways of symbolizing the confession and
penitence of the day. For example, in one common variation, small cards are
distributed to the congregation on which people are invited to write a sin they
wish to confess. These small cards are brought forth to the altar table where
they are burned.[77]
Regional customs
In Victorian era, theatres refrained from presenting costumed shows on
Ash Wednesday, so they provided other entertainment, as mandated by
the Church of England (Anglican Church).[78]
In Iceland, children "pin small bags of ashes on the back of some
unsuspecting person",[79] dress up in costumes, and sing songs for candy.[80]

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Biblical significance of ashes
Ashes were used in ancient times to express grief. When Tamar was
raped by her half-brother, "she sprinkled ashes on her head, tore her robe,
and with her face buried in her hands went away crying" (2 Samuel 13:19).
The gesture was also used to express sorrow for sins and faults. In Job 42:3–
6, Job says to God: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now
mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
The prophet Jeremiah calls for repentance by saying: "O daughter of my
people, gird on sackcloth, roll in the ashes" (Jer 6:26). The prophet Daniel
recounted pleading to God: "I turned to the Lord God, pleading in earnest
prayer, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes" (Daniel 9:3). Just prior to the New
Testament period, the rebels fighting for Jewish independence,
the Maccabees, prepared for battle using ashes: "That day they fasted and
wore sackcloth; they sprinkled ashes on their heads and tore their clothes" (1
Maccabees 3:47; see also 4:39).
Examples of the practice among Jews are found in several other books
of the Bible, including Numbers 19:9, 19:17, Jonah 3:6, Book of Esther 4:1,
and Hebrews 9:13. Jesus is quoted as speaking of the practice
in Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13: "If the mighty works done in you had been
done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago (sitting) in
sackcloth and ashes."

Christian use of ashes

An 1881 Polish painting of a Roman Catholic priest sprinkling ashes on the

heads of worshippers, the form prevailing in, for instance, Italy, Spain, and
parts of Latin America[28]
Christians continued the practice of using ashes as an external sign of
repentance. Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225) said that confession of sin should be
accompanied by lying in sackcloth and ashes.[81] The historian Eusebius (c.
260/265 – 339/340) recounts how a repentant apostate covered himself with
ashes when begging Pope Zephyrinus to readmit him to communion.[82]
John W. Fenton writes that "by the end of the 10th century, it was
customary in Western Europe (but not yet in Rome) for all the faithful to
receive ashes on the first day of the Lenten fast. In 1091, this custom was
then ordered by Pope Urban II at the council of Benevento to be extended to
the church in Rome. Not long after that, the name of the day was referred to
in the liturgical books as "Feria Quarta Cinerum" (i.e., Ash Wednesday)."[83]

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 The public penance that grave sinners underwent before being admitted
to Holy Communion just before Easter lasted throughout Lent, on the first
day of which they were sprinkled with ashes and dressed in sackcloth. When,
towards the end of the first millennium, the discipline of public penance was
dropped, the beginning of Lent, seen as a general penitential season, was
marked by sprinkling ashes on the heads of all.[84] This practice is found in
the Gregorian Sacramentary of the late 8th century.[31][85] About two centuries
later, Ælfric of Eynsham, an Anglo-Saxon abbot, wrote of the rite of strewing
ashes on heads at the start of Lent.[33][86]

A Lutheran pastor distributes ashes to a communicant during a Divine

Service
The article on Ash Wednesday in the 1911 Encyclopædia
Britannica states that, after the Protestant Reformation, the ashes ceremony
was not forbidden in the Church of England, a statement that may explain
the research by Blair Meeks that the Anglican tradition "never lapsed in this
observance".[87] It was even prescribed under King Henry VIII in 1538 and
under King Edward VI in 1550, but it fell out of use in many areas after
1600.[70] In 1536, the Ten Articles issued by authority of Henry VIII
commended "the observance of various rites and ceremonies as good and
laudable, such as clerical vestments, sprinkling of holy water, bearing of
candles on Candlemas-day, giving of ashes on Ash-Wednesday".[88] After
Henry's death in January 1547, Thomas Cranmer, within the same year,
"procured an order from the Council to forbid the carrying of candles on
Candlemas-day, and the use of ashes on Ash-Wednesday, and of palms on
Palm-Sunday, as superstitious ceremonies", an order that was issued only for
the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury, of which Cranmer was
archbishop.[89][90][91] The Church Cyclopædia states that the "English office had
adapted the very old Salisbury service for Ash-Wednesday, prefacing it with
an address and a recital of the curses of Mount Ebal, and then with an
exhortation uses the older service very nearly as it stood."[74][92] The new
Commination Office had no blessing of ashes and therefore, in England as a
whole, "soon after the Reformation, the use of ashes was discontinued as a
'vain show' and Ash Wednesday then became only a day of marked solemnity,
with a memorial of its original character in a reading of the curses denounced
against impenitent sinners".[93] The Protestant Episcopal Church in the
United States of America, in the 19th century, observed Ash Wednesday: "as
a day of fasting and humiliation, wherein we are publicly to confess our sins,
meekly to implore God's mercy and forgiveness, and humbly to intercede for

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the continuance of his favour".[94] In the 20th century, the Book of Common
Prayer provided prayers for the imposition of ashes.[95]

An Episcopal priest has an Ashes to Go station for commuters at the Metro-

North Railroad in the American state of Connecticut
Monte Canfield and Blair Meeks state that after the Protestant
Reformation, Anglicans and Lutherans kept the rite of blessing and
distributing ashes to the faithful on Ash Wednesday, and that the Protestant
denominations that did not keep it encouraged its use "during and after the
ecumenical era that resulted in the Vatican II proclamations".[87][96] Jack
Kingsbury and Russell F. Anderson likewise state that the practice was
continued among some Anglicans and Lutherans.[97][98] On the other hand,
Edward Traill Horn wrote: "The ceremony of the distribution of the ashes was
not retained by the reformers, whether Lutheran, Anglican or Reformed",
although these denominations honored Ash Wednesday as the first day of
Lent.[99] Frank Senn, a liturgical scholar, has been quoted as saying: "How
and why the use of ashes fell out of Lutheran use is difficult to discern from
the sources… [C]hurch orders don't specifically say not to use ashes; they
simply stopped giving direction for blessing and distributing them and
eventually the pastors just stopped doing it."[100]
As part of the liturgical revival ushered in by the ecumenical movement,
the practice was encouraged in Protestant churches,[96]including
the Methodist Church.[101][102] It has also been adopted
by Anabaptist and Reformed churches and some less
liturgical denominations.[103]
The Eastern Orthodox churches generally do not observe Ash
Wednesday,[104] although in recent times, the creation of the Antiochian
Western Rite Vicariate has led to the observance of Ash Wednesday
among Western Orthodox parishes.[83] In this tradition, ashes "may be
distributed outside of the mass or any liturgical service" although "commonly
the faithful receive their ashes immediately before the Ash Wednesday
mass".[83] In Orthodoxy, historically, "serious public sinners in the East also
donned sackcloth, including those who made the Great Fast a major theme
of their entire lives such as hermits and desert-dwellers."[105] Byzantine Rite
Catholics, although in the United States use "the same Gregorian calendar as

Jazher Rave L. Limbungan – Grade 9

the Roman Catholic rite", do not practice the distribution of ashes as it is "not
part of their ancient tradition".[106]
In the Ambrosian Rite, ashes are blessed and placed on the heads of
the faithful not on the day that elsewhere is called Ash Wednesday, but at the
end of Mass on the following Sunday, which in that rite inaugurates Lent,
with the fast traditionally beginning on Monday, the first weekday of the
Ambrosian Lent.[107][15][108][109]

Lent

Ash Wednesday by Carl Spitzweg: the end of Carnival

Ash Wednesday marks the start of a 40-day period which is an allusion
to the separation of Jesus in the desert to fast and pray. During this time he
was tempted. Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13.[110] While not
specifically instituted in the Bible text, the 40-day period of fast and pray is
also analogous to the 40 days during which Moses repented and fasted in
response to the making of the Golden calf.(Exo. 34:27–28) (Jews today follow
a 40-day period of repenting in preparation for and during the High Holy
Days from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur.)

Dates
Further information: Lenten calendar

Ash Wednesday and other named days and day ranges around Lent and
Easter in Western Christianity, with the fasting days of Lent numbered

Jazher Rave L. Limbungan – Grade 9

 Ash Wednesday is exactly 46 days before Easter Sunday, a moveable
feast based on the cycles of the moon. The earliest date Ash Wednesday can
occur is 4 February (which is only possible during a common year with Easter
on 22 March), which happened in 1598, 1693, 1761 and 1818 and will next
occur in 2285.[111] The latest date Ash Wednesday can occur is 10 March
(when Easter Day falls on 25 April) which occurred in 1666, 1734, 1886 and
1943 and will next occur in 2038. Ash Wednesday has never occurred on Leap
Year Day (29 February), and it will not occur as such until 2096. The only
other years of the third millennium that will have Ash Wednesday on 29
February are 2468, 2688, 2840 and 2992. (Ash Wednesday falls on 29
February only if Easter is on 15 April in a leap year starting on a Sunday.)

Jazher Rave L. Limbungan – Grade 9