Ash Wednesday falls on Wednesday 10 February for 2016, the day after Shrove Tuesday and 46 days before Easter Sunday. Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent and its 40 days of fasting. But why do we celebrate it and how is it celebrated?
What does Ash Wednesday celebrate?
The day after Shrove Tuesday is the first day of Lent – the Christian time of fasting in remembrance of the 40 days that Jesus was said to have spent in the desert resisting the temptations of Satan. Ash Wednesday is the first day of 40 (excluding Sundays), leading up to Easter Sunday – the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the cross.
How do people celebrate?
Christians may have blessed ash, usually drawn with a finger in the shape of a cross, placed on their head in church on Ash Wednesday. Usually this is accompanied by the words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”, or sometimes, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel”. The former is from Genesis 3:19: “By the sweat of your face/you shall eat bread,/till you return to the ground,/for out of it you were taken;/for you are dust,/and to dust you shall return.” It is a way for Christians to remind themselves that they are mortal and need to repent for their sinfulness.
There is no fixed rule for how to administer the ashes, so some churches may sprinkle them on the heads of their congregation instead. The ashes themselves are blessed before Holy Communion is taken and are traditionally made from palm leaves that were blessed on the previous year’s Palm Sunday.
Is it only for Christians?
In the opening section of the message, Pope Francis centered his reflection on Mary as the image of the Church’s evangelisation, “because she is evangelised.”
The Pope began by reiterating the call for mercy to be celebrated and experienced in a particular way this Lent, citing the Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee Year of Mercy.
“The mercy of God is a proclamation made to the world, a proclamation which each Christian is called to experience at first hand,” he said.
After receiving the “Good News” from the angel Gabriel, Mary proclaims the Magnificat in which she “prophetically sings of the mercy whereby God chose her,” the Pope recounts.
He describes Mary as the “perfect icon of the Church which evangelises, for she was, and continues to be, evangelised by the Holy Spirit, who made her virginal womb fruitful.”
Pope Francis then reflected on the history of mercy as seen in the covenant between God and the people of Israel. “God shows himself ever rich in mercy, ever ready to treat his people with deep tenderness and compassion, especially at those tragic moments when infidelity ruptures the bond of the covenant, which then needs to be ratified more firmly in justice and truth,” he said.
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Top Photo – Cardinal Wamala and former Archbishop Kampala Archdiocese (L) having a chat with the new Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga (R) after his installation at Rubaga Cathedral.
(Photo by Ismail Kezaala)
