Ash Wednesday
February 18 · Level 3 · #1767 of 2238
Ash Wednesday opens Lent for Catholics and many Protestants. Believers come to church to begin a season of repentance and restraint.
How it is celebrated: during the service a priest marks the forehead with a cross of ashes, saying words about mortality or a call to repent. Many people fast and avoid meat on this day.
The ashes are usually made by burning palm branches blessed on the previous year's Palm Sunday. Lent is called forty days because Sundays are not counted: from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday there are exactly forty days without them.