Ash Wednesday

On this day as the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, all the faithful according to ancient custom are exhorted to approach the altar before the beginning of Mass, and there the priest, dipping his thumb into ashes previously blessed, marks upon the forehead—or in the case of clerics upon the place of the tonsure—of each the sign of the cross, saying the words: “Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.” The ashes used in this ceremony are made by burning the remains of the palms blessed on the Palm Sunday of the previous year. In the blessing of the ashes four prayers are used, all of them ancient, and the ashes are sprinkled with holy water and fumigated with incense. This calls us to remember our earthly mortality and thus repent and believe in the gospel. The ashes are a sign of penance and also a reminder that we will die a temporal death and thus should seek the kingdom of God, so that we may live with Jesus and the Church Triumphant forever in heaven.