Ash Wednesday is one of the most popular and important holy days in the liturgical calendar. Ash Wednesday comes from the ancient Jewish tradition of penance and fasting. The practice includes the wearing of ashes on the forehead. It marks the beginning of the Lenten season, a great penitential season of the church, and it comes to a close approximately six weeks later, the night before Easter Sunday.
The ashes are made from blessed palm branches, taken from the previous year’s Palm Sunday Mass. 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 say the words, “Repent and believe in the gospel.” Ashes also symbolize grief—in this case, grief that we have sinned and strayed far from God.
Beyond the necessity for repentance and the reminder of mortality, ashes are not a sacrament and do not represent communion of faith. SO IF SOMEONE WHO IS NOT A CATHOLIC WANTS TO GET ASHES ON ASH WEDNESDAY, THAT IS CERTAINLY ALLOWED. Even non-Christians are welcome to receive the ashes.
We are invited to enter this season with our whole hearts. Please ensure you lay aside the things that will distract you during this season. Respect each day of the season and ensure you are very close to God’s word. Give yourself some assignments from the scriptures as you go through this season. You can equally read the lives of the saints and follow the daily moods of the church. Don’t be a passive participant, but an active participant, so that at the resurrection morning we shall all rise with him in glory.
Father Daniel Evbotokhai
