Ash Wednesday

Mass Readings

• First Reading Joel 2:12-18
• Responsorial Psalm Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17
• Second Reading 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2
• Gospel Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Open the Mass Readings on USCCB.org →

Step Into the Story

Joel is hard to date, possibly after the exile, but his emergency is vivid: a locust plague that stripped the land bare. His answer was a national fast. Blow the trumpet, gather the elders and even nursing infants: “Rend your hearts, not your garments.” Ashes were Israel’s sign of grief; Job sits in them, and so does the king of Nineveh. A council at Benevento in 1091 is often credited with extending ashes to all the faithful.

1. 4 B.C.Antipas rules Galilee
2. 14 A.D.Tiberius becomes emperor
3. c. 20 A.D.Antipas founds Tiberias
4. 26 A.D.Pilate becomes prefect
5. This week’s scene: late 20s A.D.“Pray to your Father in secret”

Go to Galilee in the late 20s A.D. and sit among the crowd on a hillside as Jesus teaches. Matthew sets these words in the Sermon on the Mount, and gives no season or hour, so picture only what the listeners carried in their heads. They know the town square on market day, and the synagogue on the Sabbath. They have all seen the great man who makes sure his alms are noticed, the pious one praying at a busy corner, the faster who lets his face go haggard so the neighbors will see.

Let those faces come to mind, and perhaps your own among them. Feel the hard ground beneath you and the quiet as He begins. He is about to speak of a Father who sees in secret. Bow your head with the others, and listen.

Encounter the Lord

Feel the ashes pressed onto your forehead and hear the words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” or “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” Since Adam and Eve left the garden, every human life has borne this mark. Ash Wednesday tells the truth about us.

But the truth does not end there. God says through Joel, “Return to me with your whole heart.” He is not after outward show. He wants your heart. That is why Jesus says to fast, pray and give alms in secret. Lent is not a self-improvement project. It is forty days of letting the Father, who sees in secret, change what no one else can see.

Today, keep the fast and abstinence. Then choose one specific practice for each of the three: a daily time of prayer, a concrete fast, and a regular gift to the poor. Write them down and keep them simple.

Know Your Faith

Conversion of the Heart

Jesus’ call to conversion does not aim first at outward works, “sackcloth and ashes,” but at conversion of the heart. Without it, penances remain sterile and false; yet interior conversion seeks expression in visible signs and works of penance (CCC 1430).

Three Ways of Penance

Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms of penance: fasting, prayer and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God and to others (CCC 1434). When we help those in need, we pay a debt of justice (CCC 2446).

The Season of Lent

Lent and every Friday are intense moments of the Church’s penance (CCC 1438). By the forty days of Lent, the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert (CCC 540).

Fasting and Abstinence

The fifth precept of the Church requires us to observe the days of fasting and abstinence (CCC 2043). In the United States, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of fasting and abstinence, and all Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence.