Ash Wednesday

What is Ash Wednesday? It marks the beginning of Lent 40 days not counting Sundays before the celebration of Resurrection

How to Determine the Date of Resurrection Sunday Start with the year and add 1 – = 2007 Divide by 19 –2006 / 19 = 105 r 12 Ignore the answer but keep the remainder and apply it to the following chart Resurrection Sunday is the first Sunday following the date on the chart

Ash Wednesday Chart 0 – March April 5 1 – April 1411 – March 25 2 – April 312 – April 13 3 – March 2313 – April 2 4 – April 1114 – March 22 5 – March 3115 – April 10 6 – April 1816 – March 30 7 – April 817 – April 17 8 – March 2818 – April 7 9 – April 16

Tradition Ash Wednesday and Lent are traditions of our early church fathers To observe or not to observe

Aelfric (955 – 1020) We read in the books both in the Old Law and in the New that the men who repented of their sins bestrewed themselves with ashes and clothed their bodies with sackcloth. Now let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten fast. – Lives of the Saints

Apostolic Constitutions – Book IV, Section III, Paragraph XIII …after which the fast of Lent is to be observed by you as containing a memorial of our Lord's mode of life and legislation. But let this solemnity be observed before the fast of the passover.

Mourning Then Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore her robe of many colors that was on her and laid her hand on her head and went away crying bitterly. - 2Samuel 13:19

Mourning When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. He went as far as the front of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes - Esther 4: 1, 3

Repentance Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. - Job 42:6

Repentance Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed to the LORD my God and made confessions, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. – Daniel 9:3

40 Days of Fasting Deuteronomy 9 – Moses 1Kings 19 – Elijah Matthew 4- Jesus

Apostolic Constitutions – Book IV, Section III, Paragraph XV But He commanded us to fast on the fourth and sixth days of the week; the former on account of His being betrayed, and the latter on account of His passion.

Fasting and Prayer But as for me, when they were sick, My clothing was sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting; And my prayer would return to my own heart. - Psalm 35:13

Fasting in Marriage 1Corinthians 7:5 – Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Why not Sundays? Matthew 9:14, 15 – Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”