Ash Wednesday, marked by the administration of ashes on the forehead or head of the faithful, begins the solemn season of Lent.
(In the Catholic liturgical calendar, Lent refers to the 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday. Lent 2026 starts on Feb. 18, Ash Wednesday, and ends on April 2, Holy Thursday, before the Mass of the Lord’s Supper.)
More than a marker of time, Ash Wednesday signifies the start of our “return journey to God,” as then Pope Francis said during his homily for the Mass of Ash Wednesday in February 2023 at the Basilica of Saint Sabina in Rome.
His message was taken from the day’s First Reading from the Book of Prophet Joel: “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning” (Jl 2:12-18).
‘Favorable time’
The Holy Father described Lent as the “favorable time” to return to what is essential, to lay aside what burdens us, to be reconciled with God, and to rekindle the fire of the Holy Spirit hidden beneath the ashes of our frail humanity.
He explained that the administration of ashes is an exhortation to return to the truth about ourselves, to God, and to our brothers and sisters. The ashes remind us of who we are, recalling the “essential truth of our lives: that the Lord alone is God and we are the work of His hands.”
In his Ash Wednesday homily in March 2025, which was read on his behalf by Cardinal Angelo de Donatis because he was then in hospital with bilateral pneumonia, Pope Francis reiterated the theme of returning to God.
He began by reflecting on human fragility: “We bow our heads in order to receive the ashes, as if to look at ourselves, to look within ourselves. Indeed, the ashes help to remind us that our lives are fragile and insignificant: We are dust, from dust we were created, and to dust we shall return.”
He noted that human fragility includes weariness, weakness, illness, poverty, suffering, and mortality, and that fragility also appears in social realities: abuse of power, exclusion, war, violence, and exploitation of the earth.
Sign of hope
Yet even death, he said, is a sign of hope: “The ashes remind us that we are dust, but they also set us on a journey towards the hope to which we are called.”
He continued: “For Jesus descended to the dust of the earth and, by his Resurrection, has drawn us with himself into the Father’s heart. Thus, the Lenten journey towards Easter unfolds amidst the remembrance of our fragility and the hope that, at the end of the road, the Risen Lord is waiting for us.”
Christ’s death and resurrection thus restore life to the “ashes” of our existence, Pope Francis said. Without this hope, we would be left only to endure the fragility of our human condition. The hope of Easter reassures us of God’s forgiveness.
He concluded with an exhortation echoing his 2023 homily: to “return to God with all our hearts.”
The faithful are again enjoined to return to the truth about ourselves and to return to God and to our brothers and sisters.
Old Testament origins
The use of ashes originates in the Old Testament, symbolizing grief, mortality, and penance. Job repented in sackcloth and ashes (Job 42:6). Mordecai wore sackcloth and ashes upon hearing of King Ahasuerus’ decree to kill the Jewish people (Esther 4:1). Daniel, while captive in Babylon, said: “I turned to the Lord God, pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes” (Daniel 9:3).
Today, ashes signify penitence, inner conversion, and hope in God’s mercy. Ash Wednesday begins the time of preparation for the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection.
The administration of ashes is not a sacrament but a sacramental, and may therefore be received by anyone, including children and non-Catholics. Its significance lies in personal repentance and faith, rooted in Catholic tradition.
The ashes dispose us to receive grace and do not confer grace the way a sacrament does. The power of the ashes depends on one’s interior disposition—that is, one can receive the ashes and remain spiritually unchanged if one is not repentant.
Pope Francis also encouraged Catholics to embrace the traditional Lenten practices of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting.
He said prayer draws us closer to God with sincerity and silence, fasting frees us from distractions and attachments, and almsgiving opens our hearts to others in need.
Fasting and abstinence
Ash Wednesday is a day of obligatory fasting and abstinence. Canon 1252, which defines who is bound by Church laws on fasting and abstinence (especially relevant for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday) states:
• Abstinence from meat is required of all Catholics aged 14 upward.
• Fasting is required of Catholics from age 18 until 59.
• These apply to those who are physically and morally able to observe them.
In practice, these mean that 15-year-olds must abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays of Lent; 25-year-olds must both fast and abstain on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday; and 60-year-olds must still abstain from meat but are no longer bound to fast.
Those who are sick, pregnant, elderly, or have medical conditions are not obliged to fast if it would harm their health.
Fasting may mean eating in a day only one big meal, or two small meals, or no meal at all, and no snacking. It could also be a time to break from usual practices or habits like surfing the Internet and engaging in social media, watching TV, or playing online games, to allow for more time for reflection and prayer.
A pastoral advice to deepen the spiritual experience includes going to confession, making one real sacrifice, adding one real prayer habit, and practicing hidden acts of charity.
The administration of ashes varies across cultures. In the Philippines, the United States, and most parts of South America, ashes are administered in the form of a cross on the forehead—a visible sign of repentance and faith in Christ. In Italy and other parts of Europe, ashes are sprinkled on the crown of the head, echoing the biblical practice signifying humility and mourning.
Both practices, different traditions of the same sacramental, are permitted and carry the same grace.
When administering ashes, the priest or minister says one of two formulas: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” or “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The underlying call is the same: Return to God. CS
Related story: Marking Ash Wednesday and recalling Pope Francis’ call to ‘return to God with all our heart’
