Remember that you are dust

For the day Lent begins.

Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation, and the churches are packed anyway. Something about having ashes pressed onto your forehead and being told, out loud, that you are going to die, cuts through in a way that homilies do not.

The Words at the Imposition of Ashes

Remember that you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.

or

Repent, and believe in the Gospel.

A Prayer for Ash Wednesday

Lord, I am dust, and I forget it every day.

I live as though I had unlimited time,
unlimited chances,
and no appointment to keep with You.

Mark me today, inside as well as out.
Let the ashes mean something by Easter:
not a smudge I wore for a morning,
but the beginning of something that actually changed. Amen.

The Fast

• Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fasting — one full meal and two smaller ones — for Catholics from eighteen to fifty-nine.
• Both are also days of abstinence from meat, binding from age fourteen.
• Those who are ill, pregnant, nursing, or whose work or health requires otherwise are excused; the Church has never wanted the fast to harm anyone.
• If you are not sure whether you are obliged, ask a priest rather than worry.

About This Day

The ashes are made by burning the palms from the previous Palm Sunday — last year’s triumph, this year’s penance. Nothing in the liturgy is accidental.