54 Fun Facts About Ash Wednesday

The traditional words said as Ash Wednesday's ashes are given remind each worshipper of what?

Their own mortality. The words are 'Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return', God's sentence on Adam in Genesis, and they are said to everyone in turn, the presiding priest or bishop included.

Besides Ash Wednesday, on which other day of the year must Roman Catholics fast?

Good Friday. Catholics were once bound to fast through the whole of Lent; in the twentieth century the rule was cut back to these two days, with the rest left to each person's choice.

What are the ashes used on Ash Wednesday traditionally made from?

Palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday. Ashes were once only for notorious sinners doing public penance; when that custom faded about a thousand years ago, whole congregations began to receive them instead.

In what shape are the ashes usually marked on the forehead in English-speaking countries?

A cross. The minister traces it with a thumb dipped in the ash; where the ashes are instead sprinkled dry on the crown of the head, as in much of the rest of the world, nothing shows afterwards.

Which season did the Old English word 'lencten' name before it shrank to mean only the church's Lent?

Spring. The word probably began as 'long days', for the lengthening light; other Germanic languages kept it for the season, and only English turned it into the name of the forty-day fast.

Which words from Mark may a Catholic priest say when giving Ash Wednesday ashes?

Repent, and believe in the Gospel closes the first words Jesus speaks in Mark, as he starts preaching in Galilee. The modern Roman Missal prints it first, ahead of the older line drawn from Genesis.

Which days are left out of the 40-day fast that begins on Ash Wednesday?

Sundays are never fast days, so six weeks of Lent once held only 36 days of fasting. Four more days were added in front to reach 40, which is why the season starts on a Wednesday.

In Madrid, Carnival traditionally ends on Ash Wednesday with a mock funeral procession for which fish?

A sardine: in the 'Burial of the Sardine', mock mourners parade a fish effigy, then bury or burn it to lay Carnival's excesses to rest. Goya painted Madrid's revellers dancing their way to the riverbank.

Which liturgical colour do Catholic priests put on for Ash Wednesday and keep as the colour of Lent?

Purple marks a season of penance, which is why it returns in Advent. Midway through Lent, on Laetare Sunday, priests may trade it for rose to signal a pause for joy.

Ash Wednesday shared its date with which celebration in both 2018 and 2024?

Valentine's Day. Ash Wednesday is tied to Easter, so a 14 February start in an ordinary year always puts Easter on April Fools' Day, as in 2018 and again in 2029.

Which word drops out of the Roman Catholic Mass on Ash Wednesday and returns only at the Easter Vigil?

Alleluia, Hebrew for 'praise the Lord', is swapped all through Lent for a verse that says much the same in plain words: 'Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ'. Only the joyful Hebrew sound is given up.

For Roman Catholics aged 18 to 59, what does the Ash Wednesday fast permit?

One full meal and two smaller meals that together fall short of a second full one: the Church's fast still means eating three times a day, with drinks at any hour but nothing solid in between.

Which animal may Catholics still eat on Ash Wednesday, when Church rules forbid meat?

Alligator is allowed because the ban covers only warm-blooded land animals and birds, and reptiles fall outside it. New Orleans' archbishop confirmed it in 2010 when an alligator wrangler wrote to ask.

Christians keeping the strict Black Fast on Ash Wednesday ate nothing until what time of day?

Sunset: only then came the day's single, meatless meal. Some Christians in Pakistan still fast from dawn to dusk through Lent, as their Muslim neighbours do in Ramadan.

Catholic priests may give ashes to anyone who asks, since ashes are a blessing rather than one of the seven what?

Sacraments such as Communion are kept for members of the Church, but ashes are only a 'sacramental', so non-Catholics, the unbaptised and even the excommunicated may come forward for them.

Which pope led the 1091 council that told all Christians to receive ashes, four years before launching the First Crusade?

Urban II presided at Benevento, where the council ruled that everyone, clergy and laity, men and women alike, should receive ashes. The rite had spread by custom for a century before any pope made it a rule.

Which early pope is traditionally, though probably wrongly, credited with introducing the ashes of Ash Wednesday?

Gregory I the Great preached about a Lent only six weeks long. The four days that now start it on a Wednesday were most likely added after his time, so the ashes are unlikely to be his idea.

Which Renaissance painter showed a fat Carnival on a barrel jousting with a gaunt Lady Lent?

Pieter Bruegel the Elder armed Carnival with a spit of roast meats and Lent with two herring on a baker's paddle. Behind them one half of the town square feasts while the other half fasts.

Which archbishop obtained a council order under Edward VI banning ashes on Ash Wednesday as superstitious?

Thomas Cranmer had the candles of Candlemas stopped by the same order. A decade earlier Henry VIII had still upheld the giving of ashes as a good and laudable ceremony.

Which English text of 1549 replaced Ash Wednesday's ashes with a service of God's curses on sinners?

The Book of Common Prayer had the minister read out curses from Deuteronomy, the people answering 'Amen' to each. The service's opening words called this a stand-in until public penance for notorious sinners could be restored.

Which psalm, known by its Latin opening words, is traditionally sung at Ash Wednesday services?

Miserere, 'have mercy', opens Psalm 51 in Latin. Its heading presents it as King David's plea after the prophet Nathan confronted him over his affair with Bathsheba.

Which major branch of Christianity skips Ash Wednesday, beginning Great Lent on Clean Monday instead?

Eastern Orthodox Christians open the fast the evening before Clean Monday instead, at Forgiveness Vespers, where worshippers bow to one another in turn and ask each other's pardon.

In which Italian city does Carnival run four days longer, past Ash Wednesday, because its own ancient rite starts Lent later?

Milan follows the Ambrosian Rite, named for its 4th-century bishop St Ambrose, which has no Ash Wednesday at all. Its Carnival carries on until the Saturday, by which time the rest of Italy has been in Lent for days.

'Political Ash Wednesday', when German party leaders trade insults at rowdy rallies, began in which state?

Bavaria's tradition grew out of a cattle market in the town of Vilshofen, which drew crowds of farmers each Ash Wednesday. The speeches go back to a rally a farmers' league held there in 1919.

In which Nordic country do costumed children sing in shops for sweets on Ash Wednesday, known there as Öskudagur?

Iceland's Öskudagur once meant secretly pinning little bags of ash on other people's backs. That prank has all but died out, and the day now looks more like Halloween.

Which dish is the centrepiece of Maslenitsa, Russia's festive week before Lent begins?

Blini are fried by the stack all week. The festival ends with a straw effigy of Lady Maslenitsa going up in flames to see off winter.

Ash Wednesday is National No Smoking Day in which country?

The Republic of Ireland ties its quit day to the Lenten habit of giving something up: Ash Wednesday was already the day Irish smokers traditionally tried to stop, so health campaigns are timed to match.

Which Old Testament city repented in sackcloth and ashes after the prophet Jonah's warning?

Nineveh's king left his throne, put on sackcloth and sat in ashes, then ordered that even the animals fast and wear sackcloth. The destruction Jonah had announced was called off.

Which biblical figure declared 'I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes'?

Job says it once God has finally answered him out of a whirlwind, taking back his long complaint about his suffering. His fortunes are then restored twice over.

The Gospel read on Ash Wednesday, a warning against fasting for show, comes from which of Jesus's discourses?

The Sermon on the Mount tells anyone fasting to wash their face so that nobody can tell. It is read on the one day when many Christians wear the sign of their fast on their foreheads.

The 40 days of Lent that begin on Ash Wednesday allude to Jesus fasting where?

In the desert, straight after his baptism, Jesus fasted for 40 days and turned down three temptations: bread made from stones, a leap from the Temple roof and rule over every kingdom on earth.

In medieval England, people went to church before Lent to be 'shriven', which meant doing what?

Confessing their sins and being absolved left people 'shriven'. An English church rule of about the year 1000 told everyone to go to their confessor in the week before Lent for exactly that.

What does the French name Mardi Gras mean in English?

Fat Tuesday reached America with French explorers, who camped near the mouth of the Mississippi in March 1699 and named the spot Pointe du Mardi Gras, years before New Orleans was founded.

Why did pancakes become the traditional dish on the day before Lent begins?

To use up eggs and butter, and the milk too: the Lenten fast once banned all three for its full 40 days, so the larder had to be emptied first. Pancake races grew out of the same rush.

The famous pancake race is said to have begun in 1445 in which English town?

Olney's story has a housewife hearing the church bell mid-cooking and running to the service with her frying pan. Since 1950 the town has raced against Liberal, Kansas, each running at home and comparing times.

What is the Latin name for the season of Lent?

Quadragesima means 'fortieth', for the 40 days. Worn down by centuries of speech, it became the everyday word for Lent in French (carême), Spanish (cuaresma) and Italian (quaresima).

Which poet published Ash-Wednesday, sometimes called his conversion poem, in 1930?

T. S. Eliot wrote it as his first long poem after joining the Church of England in 1927, the year the St. Louis-born poet also became a British subject. It is a religious meditation unlike anything in The Waste Land.

The Ash Wednesday bushfires of 16 February 1983 struck which two Australian states?

Victoria and South Australia had been through ten months of drought. Just before nightfall a violent wind change swung the fires round, turning their long flanks into broad fronts, and many of the deaths followed.

Which 2009 fires overtook Ash Wednesday as Australia's deadliest bushfires?

Black Saturday killed 173 people on 7 February 2009, more than twice Ash Wednesday's toll of 75, and led to a royal commission into how the disaster was handled.

The Ash Wednesday Storm of March 1962 battered which part of the United States?

The mid-Atlantic seaboard took three days of pounding because the storm stalled offshore instead of moving on. It wrecked a resort being built on Assateague Island so thoroughly that the land became a national seashore.

Which kind of tide made the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 so destructive?

Spring tide: sun and moon were in line, pulling together, and the moon was at its closest to Earth as well. The lingering storm then drove the sea ashore on five of those extra-high tides in a row.

Which actress starred in the 1973 film Ash Wednesday, about a woman transformed by cosmetic surgery?

Elizabeth Taylor, then about 41, played a wife in her fifties who has the surgery to win back her husband, played by Henry Fonda. He leaves her anyway.

The earliest known use of the Greek name for Lent is in which church council's canons?

Nicaea in 325 uses the word only in passing: its fifth canon tells bishops to hold one of their two yearly synods 'before Lent', so that disputed excommunications are reviewed and all bitterness put away.

Under Catholic rules, who may bless the ashes on Ash Wednesday?

Only a priest or deacon may bless them, but after that anyone may pass them on: lay ministers help to give out the ashes in church and carry them to the sick.

Which tiny figure is hidden inside a New Orleans king cake, eaten from Twelfth Night until the eve of Ash Wednesday?

A baby, meant to stand for the infant Jesus, is tucked into the cake. By custom whoever finds it in their slice has to buy the next cake or host the next party.

Which German city ends its Carnival on the eve of Ash Wednesday by burning the Nubbel, a straw scapegoat?

Cologne's pubs hang the life-size straw Nubbel over their doors for the carnival days. In the night before Ash Wednesday he is carried off in a mock funeral and burned as the scapegoat for the season's excesses.

In Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist calendars, Lent runs from Ash Wednesday to which day?

Holy Saturday closes Lent in those churches. Catholics now count the season only to the evening of Maundy Thursday, two days earlier, although their Lenten fast still runs on to the same Saturday night.

Easter, and so Ash Wednesday, is dated from the first full moon on or after which fixed point?

The March equinox is pinned by church rule to 21 March, whatever the sky is doing. Easter is the first Sunday after the next full moon, and Ash Wednesday is found by counting back from it.

Which prophet, known as the 'weeping prophet', urged his people to 'gird on sackcloth, roll in the ashes'?

Jeremiah was warning Jerusalem that an army from the north was on its way. He lived to see it arrive: Babylon took the city and destroyed its Temple within his lifetime.

Jesus said which two Phoenician port cities would have repented in sackcloth and ashes had they seen his miracles?

Tyre and Sidon were wealthy pagan ports up the coast. Jesus named them to shame Chorazin and Bethsaida, the Galilean towns that had watched most of his miracles and carried on unmoved.

Which biblical woman put ashes on her head and tore her robe after her half-brother assaulted her?

Tamar was King David's daughter. Two years later her brother Absalom had the attacker, their half-brother Amnon, killed in revenge, the first step in his break with their father.

Which custom do Greek families keep on Clean Monday, their first day of Lent?

Flying kites is the day's main event. Clean Monday is a public holiday in Greece, and families head for hills and beaches with picnics of shellfish and lagana, a flatbread baked only that day.

Which Swiss city's carnival starts at 4 a.m. on the Monday after Ash Wednesday, when most others have ended?

Basel opens its Fasnacht with the Morgestraich: on the stroke of four every light in the old town goes out and masked pipers and drummers set off by lantern-light. It runs for exactly 72 hours.

Which fast-food chain's fish sandwich was invented in 1962 to win back Catholic customers during Lent?

McDonald's owes the Filet-O-Fish to a Cincinnati franchisee whose Catholic customers stayed away on meatless days. It had to win a bet first, against chief Ray Kroc's own Hula Burger, a slice of pineapple in a bun.