Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday opens Lent, the season of prayer, fasting and generosity that leads Christians toward Easter. Churches fill at dawn, at lunchtime and after work, and people head back out into the day with a small cross of ashes on their foreheads. It’s the morning after Mardi Gras, and the mood changes completely: quiet, honest and hopeful.

Why the date moves

Ash Wednesday is counted back from Easter, which follows the moon. It falls 46 days before Easter Sunday, so it can come as early as February 4 or as late as March 10. Those 46 days hold the 40 days of Lent plus six Sundays, which aren’t counted as fast days, because every Sunday celebrates the resurrection.

The ashes

Ashes have long been a sign of grief and repentance. In the Hebrew Bible, people sat in sackcloth and ashes to mourn or to turn back to God. The early church sprinkled ashes on public penitents at the start of Lent, and over time other believers asked for them too, until by the 11th century they were the custom for everyone.

Most churches make the ashes by burning the palm branches from the previous year’s Palm Sunday. The minister marks each forehead with a small cross and says, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” or another call to repentance. Many people simply leave the mark on for the rest of the day.

Fasting and the weeks ahead

For Catholics, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fasting and abstinence, and every Friday in Lent is a day without meat, which is why parish fish fries pop up all spring. Christians of many traditions give something up for the season, or take something on: more prayer, a daily reading, more time or money for people in need. The Gospel read on Ash Wednesday, from the sixth chapter of Matthew, names the three practices of Lent: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

How different churches keep it

Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians all mark Ash Wednesday, and more Protestant congregations have taken it up in recent decades. Some bring the ashes outside, to street corners and train platforms, a practice called Ashes to Go. Most Eastern Orthodox churches don’t keep Ash Wednesday at all. Their Great Lent begins on Clean Monday, counted back from Orthodox Easter, which is usually later than Western Easter.

However it’s kept, Lent runs about six weeks and leads Christians toward Easter. In the Roman Catholic calendar it ends on the evening of Holy Thursday, when the three days of Easter begin.