Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. Its date moves because Easter moves. It falls 46 days before Easter Sunday: forty days of Lenten penance, not counting the six Sundays, which remain celebrations of the Resurrection even in Lent.

At Mass the minister places ashes on the forehead in the form of a cross, with one of the formulas: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” or “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” The ashes are made by burning the palms from the previous Palm Sunday. They are a sign of mortality and of conversion, not a sacrament.

In the Latin Church in the United States, Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting and of abstinence from meat. The fast binds Catholics from 18 through 59; abstinence from meat binds those 14 and older. Other bishops’ conferences publish their own norms. The day is not a holy day of obligation, but churches are usually full because the rite marks the turn of the year toward Easter.

The liturgy uses violet vestments. The Gloria is omitted, and the Alleluia is not sung again until the Easter Vigil. The day’s readings call Israel and the Church to a penance that is interior: torn hearts rather than a performance for others.