Ash Wednesday

18 February

By Johannes
A lay catholic voice reflecting within the life of the parish

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the Church’s forty-day journey of preparation for Easter. From the earliest centuries, Christians understood that the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection required spiritual preparation through prayer, fasting, and penitence. By the fourth century, the Church had already established a forty-day period of preparation, modelled on the forty days Jesus spent in the desert, as well as other significant biblical periods marked by forty days or forty years — the flood, Israel’s journey through the wilderness, and the fasting of Moses and Elijah.

Originally, Lent began six Sundays before Easter. However, because Sundays were never considered fast days, the Church gradually adjusted the calendar to preserve the full forty days. By the fifth century, the days preceding the Easter Triduum were counted as part of Lent, and eventually the beginning of Lent was brought forward by four days. Thus, Ash Wednesday came to mark the formal start of the Lenten season.

In the early Church, Ash Wednesday was closely associated with public penance. Those who had committed serious sins were required to undertake visible acts of repentance. Dressed in penitential garments and sprinkled with ashes, they would walk through the streets as a sign of their desire for reconciliation. Over time, as the practice of public penance faded, the Church extended the sign of ashes to all the faithful, recognising that every believer stands in need of conversion. By the twelfth century, it became customary to use ashes made from the olive or palm branches blessed on Palm Sunday the previous year — a powerful reminder of the cycle of repentance, death, and renewal at the heart of Christian life.

The Gospel proclaimed on Ash Wednesday gives clear guidance for how Lent is to be lived. Jesus warns his disciples against practising religion for display or approval. Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting are not performances, but acts offered quietly before God. What matters is not appearance, but intention; not being seen, but being transformed. The Father who sees in secret, Jesus tells us, is the one who rewards what is done in truth.

Lent is traditionally described as a journey into the desert, echoing the forty days Jesus spent facing temptation. While the deserts we encounter today may not be places of sand and solitude, they are no less real. Many experience deserts of exhaustion, anxiety, loneliness, or spiritual emptiness. Ash Wednesday invites us to enter these places honestly, not to escape them, but to allow God to meet us within them. As Father Tonino Bello described it, Lent is “life on a scale” — a time to reassess priorities, to abandon easy compromises, and to learn again what truly matters.

The Church proposes three traditional practices for this journey: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Prayer re-centres life on God and opens the heart to truth. Fasting teaches freedom — freedom from excess, from false needs, and from the illusion that consumption can satisfy the human heart. Almsgiving flows naturally from these, turning attention outward toward others, especially those in need. Even practices that seem small or familiar, such as abstaining from meat, retain their value as acts of obedience, humility, and shared discipline within the Church.

Ash Wednesday confronts us with our fragility — “Remember that you are dust” — but it does so with hope. Lent is not a season of despair, but of grace. It is an invitation to return to God with honesty, to let go of what deadens the spirit, and to walk with Christ toward Easter renewed, reconciled, and alive.