What is the stuff that people put on their forehead on Ash Wednesday? Is it Ash? What is the meaning of it?

Question

I am not Catholic.

Is it just any ash or is it some special kind of ash?

Answer 1

Biblical answer instead of Catholic one.

In the bible, people put ashes on their bodies, not just their foreheads as a way to show that they were repenting of their sins. They also adorned clothing that was uncomfortable.

This was not so much as to show someone else as it was to be uncomfortable enough that it would remind them and keep them in the mindset that they had sinned and needed to get back right with God.

There was no certain day set aside to do this and it is an old testament way of repenting.

Remember the story of Nineva (jonah /whale) after Jonah told them they must repent and change their ways or be destroyed by God, the entire city including the animals were covered in ashes and the entire city repented, thus God did not destroy them.
100 years later they were actively sinfull and dangerous again, so God did end up destroying the city, but that is just the rest of the story, so to speak.

Answer 2

Ash Wednesday is the official start of Lent. Lent is a forty day season excluding Sunday to prepare and think about the death and ressurection of Jesus Christ.
Roman Catholicism uses ashes on Ash Wednesday. Catholics believe ashes are a long tradition in Catholicism. During the Ash Wednesday Mass or service, the priest places ashes on the middle of people's forehead if they want. This might sound a bit unusual, however, there is meaning behind it.

Ashes are an ancient symbol meaning repentance. Catholics repent for our sins. Having ashes reminds us that we need to apologize to God for sinning. Sins hurt God. Many Catholics attend Sacrament of Penance during the season of Lent.

Another reason for the ashes is to remind us that one day we are going to die. Our physical bodies will turn to dust, however, our souls will return to God.

The ashes are a physical reminder that what how we live our life matters. We will not be on Earth forever, but our souls never die.
Having ashes on Ash Wednesday shows we have a deeper understanding of God and the season of Lent.

Answer 3

"In the Western Christian calendar, Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent."

"At Masses and Services of worship on this day, worshippers are blessed with ashes by the celebrating priest or minister. The priest or minister marks the forehead of each participant with black ashes, in the shape of a cross, which the worshipper traditionally retains until washing it off after sundown. In Roman Catholic churches, the minister of ashes may also be a layperson or non-priest. The symbolism echoes the ancient Near Eastern tradition of throwing ash over one's head signifying repentance before God (as related numerous times in the Bible)."

"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."

Answer 4

It is ashes from the burnt palms used on the prior Palm Sunday.

The ashes are put on in the sign of the Cross and signify that you belong to Christ.

Peace!

Answer 5

i got here across this on line: "even with a majority of those references in Scripture, using ashes in the Church left in trouble-free terms some information in the 1st millennium of Church history. Thomas Talley, an expert on the history of the liturgical 12 months, says that the 1st needless to say datable liturgy for Ash Wednesday that provides for sprinkling ashes is in the Romano-Germanic pontifical of 960. earlier that element, ashes have been used as an illustration of admission to the Order of Penitents. As early because of the fact the 6th century, the Spanish Mozarabic ceremony demands signing the brow with ashes whilst admitting a gravely ill individual to the Order of Penitents. on the commencing up of the 11th century, Abbot Aelfric notes that it replaced into prevalent for all the dedicated to take part in a ceremony on the Wednesday earlier Lent that coated the imposition of ashes. close to the tip of that century, Pope city II noted as for the final use of ashes on that day. in trouble-free terms later did on the present time emerge as noted as Ash Wednesday. before everything, clerics and adult adult males had ashes sprinkled on their heads, on the same time as women had the sign of the go made with ashes on their foreheads. ultimately, of course, the ritual used with women got here for use for adult adult males besides. in the twelfth century the rule of thumb better that the ashes have been to be created by using burning palm branches from the previous Palm Sunday. Many parishes immediately invite parishioners to convey such palms to church earlier Lent starts and function a ritual burning of the palms after Mass." In different areas of the article, dissimilar passages are given, exhibiting that the act of donning ashes upon the physique replaced right into a longtime custom of expressing repentance. because of the fact the article wisely states, this does not advise that the prepare replaced into invented by using the peoples who wrote the bible; they basically knew approximately and practiced it.

Answer 6

It's ash from the palm branchs given out on palm sunday in the church...they burn it up then put it on peoples heads

Answer 7

on ash wednesday they burn the ash from the leaves of the palm sunday of the previous year it symbolises penence

Answer 8

I don't know what it is either, but for some reason you really push their buttons if you walk up and tell them they have something on their forehead.

Answer 9

I'm not Catholic, either. It's probably ash. This is the explanation I found:



more of your questions


What is the meaning and purpose of Ash Wednesday?
Ash Wednesday is a wake-up call. Ash Wednesday hits us squarely between the eyes, forcing us to face mortality and sinfulness. We hear Scripture readings that are urgent and vivid. We have black ashes rubbed into our foreheads. We recite a Litany of Penitence that takes our breath away, or should. It is a tough day, but take heart! This is one religious day that won’t fall into the clutches of retailers. There aren’t any Hallmark cards celebrating sin and death; no shop windows are decked out with sackcloth and ashes.

On Ash Wednesday we come to church to kneel, to pray, and to ask God’s forgiveness, surrounded by other sinners. Human sin is universal; we all do it, not only Christians. But our church tradition sets aside Ash Wednesday as a particular day to address sin and death. We do this mindful that "God hates nothing God has made and forgives the sins of all who are penitent." We are ALL sinners, no better and no worse than our brothers and sisters. This is not a day to compete ("my sins are worse than yours are"), but to confess….

Ash Wednesday is the gateway to Lent. We have forty precious days to open ourselves up most particularly to God, to examine ourselves in the presence of one who created us, knows us, and loves us. We have forty days to face ourselves and learn to not be afraid of our sinfulness. We are dust, and to dust we shall return, but with God’s grace we can learn to live this life more fully, embracing our sinfulness, allowing God to transform us.

—The Rev. Margaret Jones
from “Ash Wednesday—A Wake-up Call”


Lent is about mortality and transformation. We begin the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday with the sign of the cross smeared on our foreheads with ashes as the words are spoken over us, "Dust thou art, and to dust thou wilt return." We begin this season of Lent not only reminded of our death, but also marked for death.

The Lenten journey, with its climax in Holy Week and Good Friday and Easter, is about participating in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Put somewhat abstractly, this means dying to an old identity—the identity conferred by culture, by tradition, by parents, perhaps—and being born into a new identity—an identity centered in the Spirit of God. It means dying to an old way of being, and being born into a new way of being, a way of being centered once again in God.

Put slightly more concretely, this path of death and resurrection, of radical centering in God, may mean for some of us that we need to die to specific things in our lives—perhaps to a behavior or a pattern of behavior that has become destructive or dysfunctional; perhaps to a relationship that has ended or gone bad; perhaps to an unresolved grief that needs to be let go of; perhaps to a career or job that has either been taken from us or that no longer nourishes us; or perhaps even we need to die to a deadness in our lives.

You can even die to deadness, and this dying is also oftentimes a daily rhythm in our lives—that daily occurrence that happens to some of us as we remind ourselves of the reality of God in our relationship to God; that reminder that can take us out of ourselves, lift us out of our confinement, take away our feeling of being burdened and weighed down.

That's the first focal point of a life that takes Jesus seriously: that radical centering in the Spirit of God that is at the very center of the Christian life.

—Dr. Marcus Borg
from “Taking Jesus Seriously”


Ash Wednesday [is] the beginning of Lent. And the church does a strange thing on this day. For those who desire it, we place ashes on their foreheads as we say, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return." Sounds like the ultimate reductionist view: Humanity is nothing but dust. So what is the insight here, and what more is there to say?…