ASH WEDNESDAY, in the Western church, the first day of Lent (q.v.), so-called from the ceremonial use of ashes, as a symbol of penitence, in the service prescribed for the day. The custom is still retained in the Roman Catholic Church, the day being known as dies cinerum (day of ashes). The ashes, obtained by burning the remains of the palms blessed on the previous Palm Sunday, are placed in a vessel on the altar and consecrated before High Mass. The priest then invites those present to approach and, dipping his thumb in the ashes, marks them as they kneel with the sign of the cross on the forehead (or in the case of clerics on the place of tonsure), with the words: Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris (Remember, man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return). He himself receives the ashes from the priest of highest dignity present, or puts them on his own head in silence.
This ceremony is derived from the custom of public penance in the early Church. At what date the custom was extended to the whole congregation is not known. A passage in Aelfric's Lives of the Saints implies that it was then in common use; it certainly was so in 1091 (synod of Beneventum).
Of the reformed Churches the Anglican Church alone marks the day by any special service. This is known as the Commina tion, its distinctive feature being a solemn "denouncing of God's anger and judgments against sinners." In the Prayer Book of the American Episcopal Church, the office of Commination is omit ted, except the three concluding prayers. The ceremonial of the ashes was not proscribed in England at the Reformation ; it was indeed enjoined by proclamation in 1538, and again in 1550, but it had fallen into complete disuse by the beginning of the 17th century.
See Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, and Herzog-Hauck, Realen cyklopadie (3rd ed.) s. "Aschermittwoch" ; L. Duchesne, Christian Worship, trans. by M. L. McClure (London, 19o4)•