Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday, in Christian churches, is the first day of the penitential season of Lent, so called from the ceremony of placing ashes on the forehead as a sign of penitence. This custom, probably introduced by Pope Gregory I, has been universal since the Synod of Benevento (1091). In the Roman Catholic church, ashes obtained from burned palm branches of the previous Palm Sunday are blessed before mass on Ash Wednesday. The priest places the blessed ashes on the foreheads of the officiating priests, the clergy, and the congregation, while reciting over each one the following formula: "Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return."

Ash Wednesday

Traditionally the day for the beginning of Lent, Ash Wednesday gets its name from the custom observed in some churches of dabbing ashes on the head as a sign of penitence. This was originally a part of the discipline of public penitence and came to be used generally from the tenth century for all who attended this service: one explanatory formula read (from Gen. 3:19), "Remember, O man, that you are dust, and unto dust shall you return."

When Lent was regarded as the church's opportunity to enter into the Lord's discipline of forty days in the wilderness as preparation for ministry, it was recognized that the six weeks following the six Sundays of Lent allowed only for thirty-six days of fasting (Sunday always being a festival of the resurrection). So four preliminary days of fasting were added, and thus the season began (at Rome in the middle of the fifth century) on the Wednesday preceding the first Sunday in Lent.

By tradition preparations were made for the fasting season by using up scraps of fat, etc., on the previous day, which was known as Shrove Tuesday, and this gave rise to the custom of eating pancakes that day.

D H Wheaton
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography
A. A. McArthur, The Evolution of the Christian Year.

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