Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent for Western Christian churches.
It is also known as the 'Day of Ashes', a day of penitence to clean the
soul before the Lent fast. Roman Catholic, Anglican, and some other
churches hold special services at which worshippers are marked with
ashes as a symbol of death, and sorrow for sin.
Ashes are a biblical symbol of mourning and penance. During Lent,
ancient Christians mourned their sins and repented of them, so it was
appropriate for them to show their sincerity by having ashes on their
foreheads. The custom has persisted in the church as secular society has
changed around us.
Traditionally, the ashes for the Ash Wednesday service come from burning
the palm fronds from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebration & a
little oil is added to the ashes so that they stick to people’s
foreheads.
The use of ashes, is very symbolic.
God our Father, you create us from the dust of the earth.
Grant that these ashes may be for us a sign of our penitence, and a
symbol of our mortality.
The minister or priest marks each worshipper on the forhead, and says
remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return, or a similar
phrase based on God's sentence on Adam in Genesis 3:19. The modern
practice in Roman Catholic churches nowadays, as the ashes are being
administered, is for the priest to say something like Turn away from sin
and believe the gospel.
In Bible times the custom was to fast, wear sackcloth, sit in dust and
ashes, and put dust and ashes on one's head. While 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. These are two of the key distinctives of Lent. In
fact, Ash Wednesday is a day not only for putting ashes on one's head to
mark the cross on the believer's forehead which symbolises that through
Christ's death and resurrection, all Christians can be free from sin,
but also a day of fasting.
