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| ID 363363856 | Ash Wednesday © Jimbophotoart | Dreamstime.com |
Ash Wednesday begins today in the Western Catholic and other Christian churches. It is a time of fasting, prayer and good works and ends with Easter Sunday April 20, 2025. The ashes in the image above are used to draw a cross on the forehead of parishoners attending Ash Wednesday Services at local churches. The significance of the ashes is taken from Genesis Chapter 3, in the Garden Eden after Adam and Eve had sinned:
"To the man He said: 'Cursed is the earth in thy work: thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and in the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread, until thou return to the earth from whence thou camest: for dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return'" (Ref: See Note Below)
The ashes are obtained by burning last year's palm branches given out on previous Palm Sundays and returned for burning before Ash Wednesday. There are also religious store suppliers of the ashes.
From Wikipedia: "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."
Note: This Genesis, Chapter 3 passage above comes from "Bible History" having an 1881 copyright by Benziger Brothers, Printers to the Holy Apostolic See, New York, Cincinati and Chicago. This was the prayer book of my Uncle Martin Kubiatowicz, who was born in 1878 in Poland, and imigrated to the United States some years later with his parents Joseph Kubiatowicz and Josephine Larokowski . Click on the image below to see a larger version of the book's Title page.
