Ashes for Wednesday come from - and lead us to - Palm Sunday

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

"Repent and believe the Good News."

Once again we begin the season of Lent with the sign of ashes on our foreheads.

	L e n t

The practice of covering one's self with ashes to show mourning or regret is ancient. There are many instances in the Old Testament of people using ashes and dust (efer and afar in Hebrew) to symbolize penance, sorrow and self-inflicted humiliation. In the early church, penitents dressed in sackcloth and covered themselves with ashes before seeking reconciliation with the church.

The practice of all the members of a Christian congregation taking on ashes as a sign of penance during Lent became common by the 10th century. The phrase, still remembered by many and enjoying a resurgence in some parishes, was: "Remember that thou art dust and unto dust ye shall return." (This is a loose translation of God's sentence upon Adam in Gen. 3:19.)

All of this serves to remind people of our mortality, which came about as a consequence of sin, personified in the story of Adam and Eve. Ashes and sackcloth also symbolize the universal need for forgiveness and mercy.

The blessed ashes used on Ash Wednesday are sacramentals, which gain grace from God through the intercession of the prayer of the whole Church.

Sacramentals differ from sacraments, but the two are inseparably tied together. Sacraments are the most important. One way to remember this is to know that sacramentals were instituted by the church, but the sacraments were instituted by Christ himself.

Sacramentals bear a resemblance to certain sacraments and derive out of them.

The most obvious link between the sacramental of ashes and a sacrament is that of reconciliation. Since ashes are a traditional sign of sorrow and repentance, they help predispose our hearts to accept the mercy and love which God offers us through this sacrament.

Ashes also serve to remind us of another sacrament. It is one which many of us have received long ago, but one that the catechumens undergoing the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) will receive at the Easter Vigil: Baptism.

On Ash Wednesday, we are marked on the forehead with the sign of the cross, just as we were signed with the cross traced in oil at Baptism. During Lent, we join Christ in the journey that began with our baptism and which, through his grace, will lead to Easter and - in the end - our own resurrections.

All the more reason to "Repent (turn back) and believe the Good News."

(Sources: The Catholic Encyclopedia; Maryknoll Catholic Dictionary; New Dictionary of the Liturgy; and Dictionary of Catholic Devotions.)