Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday is a holy day of prayer and fasting in many Western Christian denominations. It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday and marks the first day of Lent: the seven weeks of prayer, fasting and almsgiving before the arrival of Easter.
Ash Wednesday is observed by Christians of the Catholic, Lutheran, Moravian, Anglican, and United Protestant denominations, as well as by some churches in the Reformed,, Baptist, Methodist and Nazarene traditions.
Ash Wednesday is traditionally observed with fasting and abstinence from meat in several Christian denominations. As it is the first day of Lent, many Christians begin Ash Wednesday by marking a Lenten calendar, praying a Lenten daily devotional, and making a Lenten sacrifice that they will not partake of until the arrival of Eastertide.
Many Christians attend special Ash Wednesday church services at which churchgoers receive ash on their foreheads or the top of their heads, as the wearing of ashes has been a sign of repentance since biblical times. The imposition of ashes is typically done with the sign of the cross, signifying that the recipient is a follower of Jesus. Ash Wednesday derives its name from this practice, in which the words accompany the placement of ashes, "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" or the dictum "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." The ashes are prepared by burning palm leaves from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebrations.
Observing and non-observing denominations
Ash Wednesday is observed by numerous denominations within Western Christianity. Latin Church Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Moravians observe it. Churches in the United Protestant tradition, such as the Church of North India, Church of South India, and United Church of Canada honour Ash Wednesday too.Some Baptists, many Methodists, many Radical Pietists such as the Evangelical Covenant Church, and some Conservative Anabaptists, including some Mennonites, observe Ash Wednesday. The Metropolitan Community Churches observe Ash Wednesday. Many Independent Catholics, and the Community of Christ also observe it.
The Reformed churches have historically not observed Ash Wednesday, nor Lent in general, due to the Reformed regulative principle of worship. Since the mid-twentieth century, many churches in the Reformed tradition do observe both Ash Wednesday and Lent such as the Church of Scotland, the Protestant Church of the Netherlands, the Swiss Reformed Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the United Church of Christ. The Reformed Church in America, for example, describes Ash Wednesday as a day "focused on prayer, fasting, and repentance." The liturgy for Ash Wednesday thus contains the following "Invitation to Observe a Lenten Discipline" read by the presider:
The Eastern Orthodox Church does not, in general, observe Ash Wednesday. Instead, Orthodox Great Lent begins on Clean Monday and followed by Sad Wednesday. There are a relatively small number of Orthodox Christians who follow the Western Rite. These do observe Ash Wednesday, although often on a different day from the previously mentioned denominations, as its date is determined from the Orthodox calculation of Pascha, which may be as much as a month later than the Western observance of Easter.
Observances
Fasting and abstinence
Many Lent-observing denominations emphasize making a Lenten sacrifice, as well as fasting and abstinence during the season of Lent, particularly on Ash Wednesday. The First Council of Nicaea spoke of Lent as a period of fasting for forty days in advance of Easter, although it is unclear whether the prescribed fast applied to all Christians, or specifically to new Christians preparing to be baptized. Whatever the council's original intent, this forty-day fast came into wide practice throughout the church.While starting a Lenten sacrifice on Ash Wednesday, it is customary to pray for strength to keep it through the whole season of Lent; many often wish others to do so as well, e.g. "May God bless your Lenten sacrifice." 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. 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. In India, Ash Wednesday is called व्रत विभूति. After attending a worship service, often on Wednesday evenings, it is common for Christians of various denominations that celebrate Lent to break that day's Lenten fast together through a communal Lenten supper, which is held in the church's parish hall.
Among Catholics, Ash Wednesday is observed by fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, Roman Catholics between the ages of 18 and 59, whose health enables them to fast, 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, as are all Fridays during Lent. Some Roman Catholics continue fasting throughout Lent, as was the Church's traditional requirement, concluding only after the celebration of the Easter Vigil. Where the Ambrosian Rite is observed, the day of fasting and abstinence is postponed to the first Friday in the Ambrosian Lent, nine days later.
Several Lutheran parishes teach communicants to fast on Ash Wednesday, with some parishioners choosing to continue doing so throughout the entire season of Lent, especially on Good Friday. A Handbook for the Discipline of Lent, a Lutheran liturgical manual, recommends that the faithful "Fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday with only one simple meal during the day, usually without meat".
In the Church of England, and throughout much of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, the entire forty days of Lent are designated days of fasting. Fridays are designated as days of abstinence in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Saint Augustine's Prayer Book, a resource for Anglicans of Anglo-Catholic churchmanship, defines "Fasting" as "usually meaning not more than a light breakfast, one full meal, and one-half meal, on the forty days of Lent." The same text defines abstinence as refraining from flesh meat on all Fridays of the Church Year, except for those during Christmastide.
In the Methodist tradition, John Wesley's sermons on the topic of the Sermon on the Mount stress the importance of the Lenten fast, which begins on Ash Wednesday. The United Methodist Church therefore states that:
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 dining with God".
Members of the Moravian Church may voluntarily fast during the season of Lent, along with making a Lenten sacrifice for the season as a form of penitence.
Date of Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday is always 46 days before Easter. Easter is determined as the Sunday following the first full moon that happens on or after the March equinox.Lent is 40 days long, not including Sundays. According to the calendar, that means the season is 46 days long overall. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday or at the start of the Easter Triduum on the evening of Holy Thursday in the Catholic Church.
Ashes
Ashes are ceremonially placed on the heads of Christians on Ash Wednesday, either by being sprinkled over their heads or, in English-speaking countries, more often by being marked on their foreheads as a visible cross. The words used traditionally to accompany this gesture are, "Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris." This custom is credited to Pope Gregory I the Great, although this is probably incorrect since Ash Wednesday was not part of Lent in his time.In the 1969 missal of the Roman Rite, an alternative formula 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 Eve after their sin, reminds worshippers of their sinfulness and mortality and thus, implicitly, of their need to repent in time.
Various manners of placing the ashes on worshippers' heads are in use within the Latin Church, the two most common being to use the ashes to make a cross on the forehead and sprinkle 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. In the Catholic Church the manner of imposing ashes depends largely on local custom since no fixed rule has been laid down. In the Lutheran Churches, ashes are normatively placed on the forehead in the shape of a cross.
Although the account of Ælfric of Eynsham shows that in about the year 1000 the ashes were "strewn" on the head, 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". In its ritual of "Blessing of Ashes", this states that "the ashes are blessed at the beginning of the Eucharist. After they have been blessed they are placed on the forehead of the clergy and people."
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. 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, by 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.
The Anglican ritual, used in Papua New Guinea states that, after the blessing of the ashes, "the priest marks his forehead and then the foreheads of the servers and congregation who come and kneel, or stand, where they normally receive the Blessed Sacrament." 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..." 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.
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. The Book of Blessings contains a simple rite. 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, laymen 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 heads of the sick or of others who are unable to attend the blessing.
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, and it is recommended to have envelopes available to facilitate this practice. At home the ashes are then placed with little or no ceremony.
Unlike its discipline regarding sacraments, the Catholic Church does not exclude anyone from receiving sacramentals, such as the placing of ashes on the head, even those who are not Catholics and perhaps not even baptized. Even those who have been excommunicated and are therefore forbidden to celebrate sacramentals are not forbidden to receive them. After describing the blessing, the rite of Blessing and Distribution of Ashes states: "Then the Priest places ashes on the heads of all those present who come to him." The Catholic Church does not limit the distribution of blessed ashes to church buildings and has suggested the holding of celebrations in shopping centers, nursing homes, and factories. Such celebrations presume preparation of an appropriate area and include readings from Scripture and prayers, and are somewhat shorter if the ashes are already blessed.
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, while a Church of England publication says they "may be made" from the burnt palm crosses of the previous year. 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.
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; but some Christian leaders, such as Lutheran pastor Richard P. Bucher and Catholic bishop Kieran Conry, recommend keeping the ashes on the forehead for the rest of the day as a public profession of the Christian faith. 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.