Car­ol Quash

The rev­el­ry of Car­ni­val is over and to­day marks the be­gin­ning of the Lenten sea­son. It is a day when peo­ple, main­ly Ro­man Catholics and An­gli­cans, flock to church­es through­out the coun­try to re­ceive a cross of ash­es on their fore­heads. But what is the true sig­nif­i­cance of Ash Wednes­day to Chris­tians? Is this ob­ser­vance sym­bol­ic of spir­i­tu­al re­new­al, or is it mere­ly a hol­low rit­u­al?

Sym­bol of cleans­ing and re­new­al

Ac­cord­ing to Vic­ar Gen­er­al at San­ta Rosa RC in Ari­ma, Mon­sign­or Chris­t­ian Pereira, the con­cept has been a part of the church's tra­di­tion for a long time. "Ini­tial­ly, it was a sign of fi­nal prepa­ra­tions for peo­ple who were now be­com­ing mem­bers of the church, be­cause East­er is the time we do bap­tisms. Then it was ex­tend­ed to all mem­bers of church in prepa­ra­tion for East­er and the re­new­al our own spir­i­tu­al lives." Mon­sign­or Pereira said dur­ing the Ash Wednes­day Mass, the priest re­minds the faith­ful that we are just dust, and ad­mon­ish­es them to turn away from sin.

"We came from the same place and will re­turn to same place," he said, adding that the ash­es sym­bol­ised that there was some­thing in us that had been de­stroyed. Af­ter our lives on this earth, some­thing re­mains. The ash­es are an ex­ter­nal sign that a deep­er part of us re­mains for­ev­er." He said ash­es have been used by many as a clean­ing agent and it was a folk sym­bol that res­onat­ed with peo­ple. "Peo­ple use ash­es for clean­ing pots and pans, so as dirty as it is, it is a form of clean­ing. It is there­fore a sym­bol of cleans­ing," Mon­sign­or Pereira said.

'On­ly hu­man'

For Ro­man Catholic Eliz­a­beth Thomas, the im­po­si­tion of ash­es on her fore­head is in­dica­tive of a con­tin­ued re­la­tion­ship with Christ. "I al­ways go for ash­es on Ash Wednes­day. I see it as a holy day, a day to re­fresh my­self in Christ. For me, it's a new be­gin­ning and the feel of phys­i­cal ash­es on my fore­head makes me feel like I have a re­newed link or re­la­tion­ship with Christ." Mean­while, Rev­erend Lystra Bark­lay of the Parish of St Mar­garet of An­ti­och in Bel­mont said the rit­u­al was a way of re­mind­ing peo­ple of the frailty and un­cer­tain­ty of hu­man life.

"The ash­es is a sign that we are be­gin­ning to pre­pare our­selves for East­er. It is a re­minder that we are dust and to dust we will re­turn. In Bib­li­cal times, the use of sack­cloth and ash­es was a sign of re­pen­tance, and to­day, dur­ing Lent, we still see it as a sign of re­pen­tance," she ex­plained. She said her Parish usu­al­ly held two ser­vices on Ash Wednes­day, one at ten in the morn­ing, for the chil­dren of the three An­gli­can schools in the area, and an­oth­er at five in the af­ter­noon for adults. She said one of her lay min­is­ters had the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of plac­ing the cross of ash­es on her fore­head.

And al­though An­gli­can Don­na May Thomas does not par­tic­i­pate in the Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties, she said she saw the ob­ser­vance of Ash Wednes­day as part of the church sys­tem. "I al­ways make an ef­fort to go to church and get the ash­es be­cause it makes me feel cleansed and I feel good about my­self." She said the rit­u­al was sym­bol­ic of re­new­al and cleans­ing. "It is the be­gin­ning of Lent and I get the time to med­i­tate on my life. I try to do things that are pleas­ing and ac­cept­able to God and on this day I get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do so," she said.

Ear­ly ori­gins

Ash Wednes­day was orig­i­nal­ly called dies cinerum (day of ash­es), and al­though it is not specif­i­cal­ly men­tioned in the Bible, it has its roots in the Old Tes­ta­ment. Ac­cord­ing to the Catholic En­cy­clo­pe­dia, the prac­tice was record­ed in the Gre­go­ri­an Sacra­men­tary dat­ing back to the eighth cen­tu­ry. Pri­or to the Mass, the priest in­vit­ed Chris­tians to the al­ter to have the cross-shaped ash­es placed on their fore­heads, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly say­ing the words of Gen­e­sis 3:19, "Re­mem­ber man that thou art dust and un­to dust thou shalt re­turn." The ash­es used in this cer­e­mo­ny were the burnt re­mains of the blessed Palm Sun­day palms from the pre­vi­ous year.