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Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is the first day of lent and occurs forty days before Easter (excluding Sundays). It falls on a different date each year, because it is dependent on the date of Easter; it can occur as early as February 4 or as late as March 10.

Ash Wednesday gets its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of the faithful as a sign of repentance. The ashes used are gathered after the Palm Crosses from the previous year’s Palm Sunday are burned. In the liturgical practice of some churches, the ashes are mixed with the Oil of the Catechumens (one of the sacred oils used to anoint those about to be baptized), though some churches use ordinary oil. This paste is used by the clergyman who presides at the service to make the sign of the cross, first upon his own forehead and then on each of those present who kneel before him at the altar rail. As he does so, he recites the words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Lent, in some Christian denominations is the forty - day – long liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter. The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where according to the Holy Bible he endured temptation by satan. Different churches calculate the forty days differently.

The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self denial – for the annual communication during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Palm Sunday is Christian moveable feast which always falls on the Sunday before Easter .The feast commemorates an event reported by all four canonical Gospels,

St. Mark – 11:1-11
St. Matthew – 21:1-11
St. Luke – 19:28-44 &
St. John – 12:12-19

The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his Passion. In many Christian churches, Palm Sunday is marked by the distribution of palm leaves (often tied into crosses ) to the assembled worshipers.