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O Jesus, you place on my forehead
the sign of your saving Cross:
"Turn from sin and be faithful
to the gospel."
How can I turn from sin unless I turn to you?
You speak, you raise your hand,
you touch my mind and call my name,
"Turn to the Lord your God again."
These days of your favor leave a blessing as you pass on me and all your people.
Turn to us, Lord God,
and we shall turn to you.
Ash Wednesday is the day for being reminded of and contemplating our mortality. |
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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. |
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