ASH WEDNESDAY

Ash Wednesday , a day of fasting, is the first day of Lent in Western Christianity. It occurs 46 days (40 fasting days, if the 6 Sundays, which are not days of fast, are excluded) before Easter and can fall as early as 4 February or as late as 10 March. Ash Wednesday is observed by many Western Christians, including Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics

Ashes

A priest marks a cross of ashes on a worshipper's forehead, the prevailing form in English-speaking countries.

Ashes are ceremonially placed on the heads of Christians on Ash Wednesday, either by being sprinkled over their heads or, in English-speaking countries, more often by being marked on their foreheads as a visible cross. The words (based on Genesis 3:19) used traditionally to accompany this gesture are:

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

In the 1969 revision of the Roman Rite, an alternative formula (based on Mark 1:15) was introduced and given first place:

Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

The old formula, based on the words spoken to Adam and Eve after their sin,^[6] reminds worshippers of their sinfulness and mortality and thus, implicitly, of their need to repent in time.^[7] The newer formula makes explicit what was only implicit in the old.

An 1881 Polish painting of a priest sprinkling ashes on the heads of worshippers, the form prevailing in, for instance, Italy, Spain, and parts of Latin America.^[5]

Various manners of placing the ashes on worshippers' heads are in use within the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the two most common being to use the ashes to make a cross on the forehead and sprinkling the ashes over the crown of the head. Originally, the ashes were strewn over men's heads, but, probably because women had their heads covered in church, were placed on the foreheads of women.^[8] In the Catholic Church the manner of imposing ashes depends largely on local custom, since no fixed rule has been laid down.^[5] Although the account of Ælfric of Eynsham shows that in about the year 1000 the ashes were "strewn" on the head,^[9] the marking of the forehead is the method that now prevails in English-speaking countries and is the only one envisaged in the Occasional Offices of the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea, a publication described as "noticeably Anglo-Catholic in character".^[10] In its ritual of "Blessing of Ashes", this states that "the ashes are blessed at the beginning of the Eucharist; and after they have been blessed they are placed on the forehead of the clergy and people."^[10] The Ash Wednesday ritual of the Church of England, Mother Church of the Anglican Communion, contains "The Imposition of Ashes" in its Ash Wednesday liturgy.^[11] On Ash Wednesday, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, traditionally takes part in a penitential procession from the Church of Saint Anselm to the Basilica of Santa Sabina, where, in accordance with the custom in Italy and many other countries, ashes are sprinkled on his head, not smudged on his forehead, and he places ashes on the heads of others in the same way
The Anglican ritual, used in Papua New Guinea states that, after the blessing of the ashes, "the priest marks his own forehead and then the foreheads of the servers and congregation who come and kneel, or stand, where they normally receive the Blessed Sacrament."^[10] The corresponding Catholic ritual in the Roman Missal for celebration within Mass merely states: "Then the Priest places ashes on the head of those present who come to him, and says to each one ..."^[13] Pre-1970 editions had much more elaborate instructions about the order in which the participants were to receive the ashes, but again without any indication of the form of placing the ashes on the head.^[14] The 1969 revision of the Roman Rite inserted into the Mass the solemn ceremony of blessing ashes and placing them on heads, but also explicitly envisaged a similar solemn ceremony outside of Mass.^[13] The Book of Blessings contains a simple rite.^[5] While the solemn rite would normally be carried out within a church building, the simple rite could appropriately be used almost anywhere. While only a priest or deacon may bless the ashes, laypeople may do the placing of the ashes on a person's head. Even in the solemn rite, lay men or women may assist the priest in distributing the ashes. In addition, laypeople take blessed ashes left over after the collective ceremony and place them on the head of the sick or of others who are unable to attend the blessing.^[5][15] (In 2014, Anglican Liverpool Cathedral likewise offered to impose ashes within the church without a solemn ceremony.)^[16]
In addition, those who attend such Catholic services, whether in a church or elsewhere, traditionally take blessed ashes home with them to place on the heads of other members of the family,^[17] and it is recommended to have envelopes available to facilitate this practice.^[18] At home the ashes are then placed with little or no ceremony.
Unlike its discipline regarding sacraments, the Catholic Church does not exclude from receiving sacramentals, such as the placing of ashes on the head, those who are not Catholics and perhaps not even baptized.^[15] Even those who have been excommunicated and are therefore forbidden to celebrate sacramentals are not forbidden to receive them.^[19] After describing the blessing, the rite of Blessing and Distribution of Ashes (within Mass) states: "Then the Priest places ashes on the heads of all those present who come to him."^[13] The Catholic Church does not limit distribution of blessed ashes to within church buildings and has suggested the holding of celebrations in shopping centres, nursing homes, and factories.^[18] Such celebrations presume preparation of an appropriate area and include readings from Scripture (at least one) and prayers, and are somewhat shorter if the ashes are already blessed.^[20]
Since 2007, some members of major Christian Churches, including Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics and Methodists, have participated in the Ashes to Go program, in which clergy go outside of their churches to public places, such as downtowns, sidewalks and train stations, to impose ashes on passersby,^[21][22][23] even on people waiting in their cars for a stoplight to change.^[24] Anglican priest, Rev. Emily Mellott of Calvary Church in Lombard took up the idea and turned it into a movement, stated that the practice was also an act of evangelism.^[25][26] Anglicans and Catholics in parts of the United Kingdom such as Sunderland, are offering Ashes to Go together: Fr. Marc Lyden-Smith, the priest of Saint Mary's Church stated that the ecumenical effort is a "tremendous witness in our city, with Catholics and Anglicans working together to start the season of Lent, perhaps reminding those who have fallen away from the Church, or have never been before, that the Christian faith is alive and active in Sunderland.”^[21] In the US, a spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said that Catholic priests were unlikely to participate,^[22] although the Catholic Student Association of Kent State University offered ashes to university students who were going through the Student Center of that institution,^[27] and the Rev. Douglas Clark of St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church in Statesboro, among others, have participated in Ashes to Go.^[28][29] Reverend Trey Hall, pastor of Urban Village United Methodist Church, stated that when his local church offered ashes in Chicago "nearly 300 people received ashes – including two people who were waiting in their car for a stoplight to change."^[24] In 2013, churches not only in the United States, but also at least one church each in the United Kingdom, Canada and South Africa, participated in Ashes to Go.^[30] However, in 2014, only one church outside the United States was reported as participating, while in the United States itself 34 states and the District of Columbia had at least one church taking part. Most of these churches (parishes) were Episcopal, but there were also several Methodist churches, as well as fewer Presbyterian and Independent Catholic churches.^[31]
The Catholic Church and the Methodist Church say that the ashes should be those of palm branches blessed at the previous Palm Sunday service,^[13][32] while a Church of England publication says they "may be made" from the burnt palm crosses of the previous year.^[10][11] 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.^[33]
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;^[34][35] but some Christian leaders, such as Lutheran pastor Richard P. Bucher and Catholic bishop Kieran Conry, recommend it as a public profession of faith.^[36][37] Rev. 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.^[38]

Anglican Commination Office[edit]

Robin Knowles Wallace states that the traditional Ash Wednesday church service includes Psalm 51 (the Miserere), prayers of confession and the sign of ashes.^[39] No single one of the traditional services contains all of these elements. The Anglican Church's traditional Ash Wednesday service, titled A Commination,^[40] contains the first two elements, but not the third. On the other hand, the Catholic Church's traditional service has the blessing and distribution of ashes but, while prayers of confession and recitation of Psalm 51 (the first psalm at Lauds on all penitential days, including Ash Wednesday) are a part of its general traditional Ash Wednesday liturgy,^[41] they are not associated specifically with the rite of blessing the ashes. The rite of blessing has acquired an untraditional weak association with that particular psalm only since 1970, when it was inserted into the celebration of Mass, at which a few verses of Psalm 51 are used as a responsorial psalm. Coincidentally, it was only about the same time that in some areas Anglicanism resumed the rite of ashes.
In the mid-16th century, the first Book of Common Prayer removed the ceremony of the ashes from the liturgy of the Church of England and replaced it with what would later be called the Commination Office.^[42] In that 1549 edition, the rite was headed: "The First Day of Lent: Commonly Called Ash-Wednesday".^[43] The ashes ceremony was not forbidden, but was not included in the church's official liturgy and fell into complete disuse by the early 17th century.^[44] Its place was taken by reading biblical curses of God against sinners, to each of which the people were directed to respond with Amen.^[45][46] The text of the "Commination or Denouncing of God's Anger and Judgments against Sinners" begins: "In the primitive Church there was a godly discipline, that, at the beginning of Lent, such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance, and punished in this world, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others, admonished by their example, might be the more afraid to offend. Instead whereof, until the said discipline may be restored again, (which is much to be wished,) it is thought good that at this time (in the presence of you all) should be read the general sentences of God's cursing against impenitent sinners".^[47] In line with this, Joseph Hooper Maude wrote that the establishment of The Commination was due to a desire of the reformers "to restore the primitive practice of public penance in church". He further stated that "the sentences of the greater excommunication" within The Commination corresponded to those used in the ancient Church.^[48] The Anglican Church's Ash Wednesday liturgy, he wrote, also traditionally included the Miserere, which, along with "what follows" in the rest of the service (lesser Litany, Lord's Prayer, three prayers for pardon and final blessing), "was taken from the Sarum services for Ash Wednesday".^[48] From the Sarum Rite practice in England the service took Psalm 51 and some prayers that in the Sarum Missal accompanied the blessing and distribution of ashes.^[41][49] In the Sarum Rite, the Miserere psalm was one of the seven penitential psalms that were recited at the beginning of the ceremony.^[50] In the 20th century, the Episcopal Church introduced three prayers from the Sarum Rite and omitted the Commination Office from its liturgy.
SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA