What
is Ash Wednesday?
The
first day of Lent is called Ash Wednesday.
The day after Shrove Tuesday, it marks the beginning of a
forty-day period of fasting and self-denial. As the name
Shrove Tuesday (from shrive, 'absolve and assigning
a penance'), the feast once served the purpose of ritually
clearing the house of rich foods such as butter and eggs.
The traditional pancakes which are frequently consumed with
lemon and sugar are signs of the sweetness of feasting and
a foretaste of the bitterness of fasting. In continental
Europe, Ash Wednesday is preceded by the three-day period
of Carneval (from the Latin/Italian carne-vale - literally,
'a farewell to meats'), a colourful celebration at which
the dark 'spirits of winter' are ritually driven out by dancing
and processions.
Since
the eighth century, Ash Wednesday is marked by the imposition
of an ash cross on the forehead. The ashes used in this memorial
of our own mortality often are produced by burning the small
palm crosses that were blessed at the Palm Sunday celebrations
the previous year. Together with Good
Friday, Ash Wednesday is usually kept as a solemn day
of fasting and abstinence. Allegri's famous Misere mei,
a solemn setting of the penetential Psalm 51, was composed
for the solemn ceremony to mark the beginning of Lent at
the Pontifical Chapel in Rome.
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