The Ashes of Ash Wednesday

Today Christians around the world begin the 40 days journey leading to Holy Week, Good Friday and on to Easter and the celebration of Christ's resurrection. This day has a very strange name, Ash Wednesday. It is a day when many worshippers gather to have their foreheads marked with the sign of the cross by ashes. The ashes are from burning the palms of the previous year's Palm Sunday celebration.

When and how did this strange practice begin? The Bible refers to the use of ashes as a sign of repentance or despair. The LORD commanded Jeremiah to call the people of his day to repent lest they suffer disaster and ruin for their idolatry and greed. Inevitable judgment is coming, he says. Then you will truly feel sorrow and pain.

O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth, and roll in ashes; make mourning as for an only son, most bitter lamentation, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us. - Jer 6:26 ESV

The best example of true repentance is found in the book of Jonah. After he had been vomited from the belly of the great fish who swallowed him during a storm at sea, Jonah finally went to Nineveh to command the people to repent. Word of his preaching reached the king of Nineveh . . .

. . . and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish." - Jon 3:6-9 ESV

In the New Testament we hear Jesus proclaim sackcloth and ashes as signs of repentance.

"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. - Mat 11:21-22 ESV

More about the actual history of this practice is found in the American Catholic website.

Despite all these references in Scripture, the use of ashes in the Church left only a few records in the first millennium of Church history. Thomas Talley, an expert on the history of the liturgical year, says that the first clearly datable liturgy for Ash Wednesday that provides for sprinkling ashes is in the Romano-Germanic pontifical of 960. Before that time, ashes had been used as a sign of admission to the Order of Penitents. As early as the sixth century, the Spanish Mozarabic rite calls for signing the forehead with ashes when admitting a gravely ill person to the Order of Penitents. At the beginning of the 11th century, Abbot Aelfric notes that it was customary for all the faithful to take part in a ceremony on the Wednesday before Lent that included the imposition of ashes. Near the end of that century, Pope Urban II called for the general use of ashes on that day. Only later did this day come to be called Ash Wednesday.

At first, clerics and men had ashes sprinkled on their heads, while women had the sign of the cross made with ashes on their foreheads. Eventually, of course, the ritual used with women came to be used for men as well.

In the 12th century the rule developed that the ashes were to be created by burning palm branches from the previous Palm Sunday. Many parishes today invite parishioners to bring such palms to church before Lent begins and have a ritual burning of the palms after Mass.

Lutherans accept this history as their own and so many parishes follow the same practice.