WHAT IS ASH WEDNESDAY?

         “Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, characterized by a penitential service during which the faithful receive ashes on their foreheads or on the crown of their head with the exhortation; “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel” or “Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return.”

-A Concise Dictionary of Theology; Revised and Expanded Edition, pp. 20-

WHAT DOES ASH SYMBOLIZES?

         This tradition can be trace down to the Jewish, in which they used Ashes in penance, mourning, and mortality (cf. Matthew 11:21, Jeremiah 6: 26, Gen. 3:19). Ashes are used to show penance, mourning and reminding that we are just mortals in which emphasizes that we need God in everything, hence, reminds us to trust God. As the Paschale Solemnitatis, no. 21 says “This sign of penance, a traditionally biblical one, has been preserved among the Church’s customs until the present day. It signifies the human condition of the sinner, who seeks to express his guilt before the Lord in an exterior manner, and by so doing express his interior conversion, led on by the confident hope that the Lord will be merciful. This same sign marks the beginning of the way of conversion, which is developed through the celebration of the sacraments of penance during the days before Easter”

WHAT DOES THE EARLY CHURCH SAYS?

         -‘De Poenitentia’ of Tertullian (c. 160-220) prescribed that the penitent must "live without joy in the roughness of sackcloth and the squalor of ashes."

         -‘The History of the Church’ by Eusebius (260-340), states how an apostate named Natalis came to Pope Zephyrinus clothed in sackcloth and ashes begging forgiveness. Also during this time, for those who were required to do public penance, the priest sprinkled ashes on the head of the person leaving confession.

IS THIS PRACTICE HAS BIBLICAL ROOTS?

ASHES AS SIGN OF PENANCE

-Esther 4:1(NRSV) “When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry;”

-Job 42: 6(NRSV) “therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

-Daniel 9: 3(NRSV) “Then I turned to the Lord God, to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.”

-Jonah 3: 5-6(NRSV) “And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.”

-Nehemiah 9: 1-3(NRSV) “Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. Then those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors. They stood up in their place and read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth part of the day, and for another fourth they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God.”

-Matthew 11: 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”

ASHES AS SIGN OF MORTALITY (NRSV)

-Genesis 3: 19(NRSV) “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

-Genesis 18: 27(NRSV) “Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.”

-John 15: 5(NRSV) “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”

Ashes are used to remind us that we are from DUST and we shall return to DUST and apart of the VINE we can do NOTHING.

ASHES AS SIGN OF MOURNING (NRSV)

-Jeremiah 6:26(NRSV) “O my poor people, put on sackcloth, and roll in ashes; make mourning as for an only child, most bitter lamentation: for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.”

WHY PUT THE MARK OF THE CROSS?

-Ezekiel 9: 4 “and he said to him, “Pass through the center of the city, through Jerusalem, and trace a cross on the forehead of the men who sigh and groan, because of all the abominations committed in it.” (CCB)

-Ezekiel 9: 4(NABRE) “and the Lord said to him:[a] Pass through the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark an X on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the abominations practiced within it.” =Cross is a mark, object, or figure formed by two short intersecting lines or piece[+ or ×] (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary)

-Ezekiel 9: 4(Duoay-Rheims) “And the Lord said to him: Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem: and mark Thau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and mourn for all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof.” =Thau is a T shape cross

-Revelation 7: 3(NRSV) “ saying, “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.”---Revelation 14: 1(NRSV) “Then I looked, and there was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion! And with him were one hundred forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.”---Matthew 28: 20(NRSV) “…in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”---1 Cor. 1: 18(NRSV) “ For the word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God.”

We can see in Rev. 7:3 the ‘seal of God’ and in Rev. 14:1 “name of the Lamb written on their foreheads” and in Matthew 28:19 the name of the triune God “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” and in 1 Cor. 1:18 “the CROSS is the POWER of GOD”

WHY IS LENT 40 DAYS LONG?

         40 days is a traditional number of Discipline, Devotion, and Preparation in the Bible

         -Exodus 24: 18(NRSV) “ Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.”

           -Exodus 34: 28(NRSV) “He was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.”

            -Numbers 13: 25(NRSV) “At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land.”

         -1 Kings 19: 8(NRSV) “He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.”

         -Jonah 3: 4(NRSV) “Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

         -Matthew 4: 2(NRSV) “He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.”

HISTORY OF THIS PRACTICE

In the Middle Ages (at least by the time of the eighth century), those who were about to die were laid on the ground on top of sackcloth sprinkled with ashes. The priest would bless the dying person with holy water, saying, "Remember that thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return." After the sprinkling, the priest asked, "Art thou content with sackcloth and ashes in testimony of thy penance before the Lord in the day of judgment?" To which the dying person replied, "I am content." In all of these examples, the symbolism of mourning, mortality and penance is clear.

In our present liturgy for Ash Wednesday, we use ashes made from the burned palm branches distributed on the Palm Sunday of the previous year. The priest blesses the ashes and imposes them on the foreheads of the faithful, making the sign of the cross and saying, "Remember, man you are dust and to dust you shall return," or "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." As we begin this holy season of Lent in preparation for Easter, we must remember the significance of the ashes we have received: We mourn and do penance for our sins. We again convert our hearts to the Lord, who suffered, died and rose for our salvation. We renew the promises made at our baptism, when we died to an old life and rose to a new life with Christ. Finally, mindful that the kingdom of this world passes away, we strive to live the kingdom of God now and look forward to its fulfillment in Heaven. (cf. catholicculture.org)

THEREFORE, ASH WEDNESDAY IS NOT A PAGAN PRACTICE RATHER A PRACTICE OF THE EARLY CHURCH