Ash Wednesday begins our Lenten journey toward the celebration of Easter. Though it is not a holy day of obligation, it is a day of fast and abstinence. We are marked with ashes, in the form of a cross, on our forehead on Ash Wednesday. Why? Bishop Erik Pohlmeier, former diocesan director of faith formation, said the prayer offered as ashes are given answers this question. “The words are a reminder of our origins, ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ The ashes and the whole season of Lent are a time to refocus on our relationship with God and that relationship starts with a dependence on God for our very existence.”
“To recall that only with the breath of God can we have life is motivation to reorder whatever part of life needs it. As God breathed life into the dust at the beginning he can breathe new life into those who have fallen into sin,” he added. “The ashes are a sign of mortality and a sign of renewal in Christ.” Learn more in our Lenten Q&A. The Old Testament offers several examples of how we have a long tradition of using ashes as an “outward sign of grief, a mark of humility, mourning, penance and morality,” according to Our Sunday Visitor. (See Job 42:6, Daniel 9:3, Jonah 3:6 and 1 Maccabees 3:47.)
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