Gregory
the Great who was Pope from 590 – 604 AD describes the Lenten Fast as of
thirty-six days duration, extending from the First Sunday of Lent to Easter Day. Sundays were not Fast Days, so six weeks of
six Fast Days per week fell short of forty days. But thirty-six is nearly a tenth part of the
year so by observing the Fast Christians were regarded as rendering a
penitential tithe of their lives to God.
We know that Lent began on the sixth Sunday before Easter a full hundred
years before Gregory became Pope.
We
don’t know exactly when Lent was pushed back to the Wednesday but it seems to
have been about one hundred years after the death of Gregory that it began to
happen as it appears in liturgical books from 714 AD onwards. But the motive for changing it is clear. By the addition of the four days preceding
the first Sunday the number of fasting days before Easter became exactly
forty. It corresponds to the fasts
recorded of Moses and Elias and most importantly with the fast of our Saviour
in the wilderness of Judea.
The
ashes are obtained by burning the palms of the previous year. In some parishes people would have been asked
last Sunday to bring in their palms today from last year’s celebration so that
they could be burned before Wednesday.
But most parishes take the easier route and rely on companies who supply
them with candles to send on a little packet of ashes as well.
After
the Gospel on Ash Wednesday the ashes are blessed and placed on the foreheads
of those who come forward. The
traditional words used at the imposition of ashes are: ‘Remember that you are
dust, and to dust you shall return.’ But
for several years there has been an alternative form of words: ‘Repent and
believe in the Gospel.’ Ash Wednesday
and Good Friday are the only days now when we are not allowed to eat meat –
they are days of abstinence as the phrase goes.
But we are encouraged to mark every Friday – especially during Lent – by
some special sign of devotion in gratitude for what Christ has done for us and
continues to do.
Ashes
were not originally administered to everybody, but only to public sinners who
wished to change their ways. Public
sinners were those who had caused great scandal to the Church by the notoriety
of their sins so it was felt that they should make amends in public as
well. They would do this by appearing
before the church door on the first day of Lent dressed in penitential garb and
with bare feet. There they would be told
what penance they were to do. Then they
were led into the church – before the Bishop if possible – who put ashes on
their foreheads. In addition to using
the traditional formula ‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return’ he
would add: ‘Do penance, that you may have eternal life.’ They were then solemnly excluded from the
church, until they were solemnly welcomed back with the Reconciliation Ceremony
on Maundy Thursday. Out of affection,
friends and relatives of the public sinner used to stand with them on Ash
Wednesday expressing sorrow for their own sins and offering their foreheads
also to be sprinkled with ashes. The
number of people who associated themselves on Ash Wednesday with the public
sinners gradually increased until the whole Christian community took it on
board.
Many
of us in our young days were often reminded of how people observed Lent up to
perhaps eighty years ago. It was not
unusual for people to abstain from all kinds of things in addition to
meat. People gave up sugar and milk in
their tea and alcohol. And children gave
up sweets – as did adults of course – for the whole six and a half weeks,
including Sundays. As a child I saved up
the Lenten sweets in a jar for Easter, as did many children at that time.
The
Irish word for Friday means ‘the day of the fast’ and for Wednesday ‘the first
fast’ a day of lesser fasting. Thursday
in Irish is ‘the day between the fasts’.
To have three days of the week named in reference to fasting shows what
significance penance had in people’s lives; not just in Lent but throughout the
year. It makes you wonder how they
managed it!
