Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the season of penance, reflection, and fasting to prepare for the Easter season. Catholics must attend mass on Ash Wednesday. When the priest says: "Remember, O man, that thou art dust and unto dust shalt thou return," he places a cross of ashes on the person's forehead. These ashes were saved from the palm leaves that were burned in the last year's Palm Sunday services and christened with Holy Water and scented with incense. The ashes are a symbol of penance and remind us that God will have mercy when we repent. The ashes follow the example of the Ninevites in the story of Jonah:

So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

Jonah 3:5-10

After the ashes are placed on the forehead, the seven "Penitential Psalms" are read. In the early church, those who had committed serious sins were not allowed in the church for 40 days and cannot enter again until Maundy Thursday.