Lent and Ash Wednesday

My family has observed Lent since I was a young child, but I never really understood what it meant until very recently, when we started attending The Falls Church and the church calendar came to mean something in our lives.

A direct quote from my father: "These church traditions were intended to be an aid to people in their spiritual walk -- not out of a sense of obligation, but out of a genuine desire to lead a richer spiritual life."

I think he's right on. I like the fact that there are times in the year to contemplate different aspects of being a Christian and remind us of Christ's coming, Christ's sacrifice, grace, and the role of the church as the body of Christ on earth. Dad sent me this brief history of Ash Wednesday:

Ash Wednesday marks the onset of Lent, the 40-day period of fasting and abstinence before Easter Sunday. Until the 600s, Lent began on Quadragesima (Fortieth) Sunday, but Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) moved it to a Wednesday, now called Ash Wednesday, to secure the exact number of 40 days in Lent - not counting Sundays, which were feast days.

Gregory, who is regarded as the father of the medieval papacy, is also credited with the ceremony that gives the day its name. As Christians came to the church for forgiveness, Gregory marked their foreheads with ashes reminding them of the biblical symbol of repentance (sackcloth and ashes) and mortality: "You are dust, and to dust you will return." (Gen. 3:19). Receiving ashes on the head was made universal throughout the Western church at the Synod of Benevento in 1091.

The ashes are prepared by burning palm leaves from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebrations and mixing them with olive oil as a fixative. It has been claimed that the word "carnival" comes from the latin words caro (meat) and vale (farewell), hence "farewell to meat" or "farewell to the flesh," letting go of the earthly or bodily self.


Resources:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/easter/lent.html
http://www.orlutheran.com/html/lenthist.html
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/holidays/ash_wednesday.htm