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Ash Wednesday comes from the ancient Jewish tradition of penance and fasting.
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The practice includes the wearing of ashes on the head.
Image: FILE
Ash Wednesday, a Christian holiday will this year be celebrated on Wednesday, February 14, concurrently with Valentine's Day.
Ash Wednesday takes place 46 days before Easter Sunday and is chiefly observed by Catholics.
Ash Wednesday comes from the ancient Jewish tradition of penance and fasting. The practice includes the wearing of ashes on the head.
This day marks the beginning of the Lenten season, reminding humans of their mortality and need for reconciliation with God.
Origin
Ash Wednesday practice originates from the 11th Century. On February 22, 1091, Pope Urban II at the council of Benevento ordered Ash Wednesday extended to the church in Rome.
Originally Roman sinners used to dress in sackcloth and were sprinkled with ashes until they were reconciled with the other community.
However, the practice was not in use anymore and a new way of applying ashes on the forehead began.
“You see that in the book of Daniel in the ninth chapter there’s a line about associating fasting with ashes, so ashes are associated with penance, the dominant theme of Lent,” Lauren F.Winter a priest at Duke Divinity School says.
The practice was not popular until the 1970s in America when Christians searched for ways to connect their spiritual life with physical life, Ash Wednesday became a symbol of faith.
The Americans began wearing it as a physical mark of their faith.
It also associates its origin with Christians who committed sins and performed public penance.
On Ash Wednesday, the Bishop blessed the hair shirts they were to wear during the forty days of penance and sprinkled over them ashes made from the palms from the previous year.
The ash used for Ash Wednesday is made of palm branches used on the previous Palm Sunday. The ashes are sprinkled with holy water and exposed to incense.
Who celebrates and why?
Catholics are known to observe the Ash Wednesday. Other denominations observe this day such as the Lutherans and Anglicans.
The ashes serve as a remembrance of the grieving and repentance of sin with priests usually uttering “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
It is an obligatory day of fasting and abstinence.
It is marked as the beginning of the 40 days of fasting, lenten where Catholics avert eating foods with meat.
Ash Wednesday places Catholics and Christians in the place of Jesus’ entry into the desert before His death.
It is a symbolic turning of one's heart towards God, recognizing the brokenness that exists and the need for salvation.