see this thread http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28972 some religous folk believe that on Ash Wednesday you go to a church and get blessed with the sign of a cross on your forehead... uh.. i don't know. where are our resident BBS Catholics, etc??
It's to keep us from being tainted by all you people who are going straight to hell when you die. It's good for about a year, and then you have to have it done again.
Um, guys, slow down and back away. Azadre spelling ignorance wrong. Pole makes a joke. It's all just a misunderstanding.
I sat on the bus with some guy with it. At first, I thought it was a birthmark and didn't want to stare. Then as he got off the bus I noticed it was a cross.
Ash Wednesday The Wednesday after Quinquagesima Sunday, which is the first day of the Lenten fast. The name dies cinerum (day of ashes) which it bears in the Roman Missal is found in the earliest existing copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary and probably dates from at least the eighth century. On this day all the faithful according to ancient custom are exhorted to approach the altar before the beginning of Mass, and there the priest, dipping his thumb into ashes previously blessed, marks the forehead -- or in case of clerics upon the place of the tonsure -- of each the sign of the cross, saying the words: "Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." The ashes used in this ceremony are made by burning the remains of the palms blessed on the Palm Sunday of the previous year. In the blessing of the ashes four prayers are used, all of them ancient. The ashes are sprinkled with holy water and fumigated with incense. The celebrant himself, be he bishop or cardinal, receives, either standing or seated, the ashes from some other priest, usually the highest in dignity of those present. In earlier ages a penitential procession often followed the rite of the distribution of the ashes, but this is not now prescribed. Read more at: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01775b.htm Either that or they've gotten the smears in a fight club.
Ash Wednesday is celebrated by many (if not all) Christian denominations. I know the Eastern Orthodox Christians do it. Big ups to my Catholic homies (even though I'm not one)! ... just so ya know.
-- (Update) Just read Juan's post . . . the ashes have always been after mass in every one that I've been to, but it's not required that it comes at any specific time. The ashes are made from the previous year's palm branches from last year's Palm Sunday. Ash Wednesday is not a "holy day of obligation" (required mass) for Catholics, but everyone goes. It's a usual mass, but at the end, you get ashes placed in a cross on your forehead, and the ash-giver (priest or eucharistic minister) says "Remember that you are from dust, and that to dust you shall return" (or something very close to that/to that effect) Got smear?
Vengeance - I always find it interesting that Ash Wednesday gets more attendees at Mass than any Holy Day with the exception of Christmas and Easter Sunday. We have at least 3000 folks attend Ash Wednesday Service and I would suspect less than 500 for any of the Holy Days (again, excepting Christmas and Easter).
Well St. Austin's was certainly packed today. I didn't know it wasn't a holy day of obligation, which makes it all the stranger that it's so packed. I guess it's just too much of a ritual for people not to go.
Most people don't know it's not a holy day of obligation. I didn't know until this afternoon, when my mother mentioned the same thing that you did bobrek. I think it may be because there is a fair amount of media coverage surrounding the whole "beginning of Lent"/Mardi Gras thing that people notice. It seems to be a pretty well known "conventional" mass day.
