Ash Wednesday trivia: 40 facts about this Christian day!

Ash Wednesday is a Christian holy day! But what about it is so special as to celebrate it?

Let’s find out some facts and trivia about this day!

1. Ash Wednesday is a Christian holy day of prayer, fasting, and repentance
2. It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday
3. It falls on the first day of Lent
4. The six weeks of penitence before Easter
5. Ash Wednesday is observed by many Christians, including Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Old Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics and some Baptists
6. Ash Wednesday derives its name from the placing of repentance ashes on the foreheads of participants
7. The ashes may be prepared by burning palm leaves from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebrations
8. Because it is the first day of Lent, many Christians, on Ash Wednesday, often begin marking a Lenten calendar
9. Praying a Lenten daily devotional
10. And abstaining from a luxury that they will not partake of until Easter Sunday arrives
11. Many Christian denominations emphasize fasting, as well as abstinence during the season of Lent and in particular, on its first day, Ash Wednesday
12. The First Council of Nicæa spoke of Lent as a period of fasting for forty days
13. In preparation for Eastertide
14. In many places, Christians historically abstained from food for a whole day until the evening
15. Western Christians traditionally broke the Lenten fast, which is often known as the Black Fast
16. In India and Pakistan, many Christians continue this practice of fasting until sunset on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday
17. With some fasting in this manner throughout the whole season of Lent
18. In the Roman Catholic Church, Ash Wednesday is observed by fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance
19. It is a day of contemplating one’s transgressions
20. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, Roman Catholics between the ages of 18 and 59 are permitted to consume one full meal
21. Along with two smaller meals
22. Which together should not equal the full meal
23. Some Catholics will go beyond the minimum obligations put forth by the Church and undertake a complete fast or a bread and water fast until sunset
24. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are also days of abstinence from meat
25. As are all Fridays during Lent
26. Some Roman Catholics continue fasting throughout Lent, as was the Church’s traditional requirement
27. Concluding only after the celebration of the Easter Vigil
28. Where the Ambrosian Rite is observed
29. The day of fasting and abstinence is postponed to the first Friday in the Ambrosian Lent, nine days later
30. Ashes are ceremonially placed on the heads of Christians on Ash Wednesday
31. Either by being sprinkled over their heads
32. In English-speaking countries, more often by being marked on their foreheads as a visible cross.
33. This custom is credited to Pope Gregory I the Great
34. In the 1969 revision of the Roman Rite, an alternative formula was released
35. The old formula, based on the words spoken to Adam and Eve after their sin, reminds worshippers of their sinfulness and mortality and thus, implicitly, of their need to repent in time
36. The newer formula makes explicit what was only implicit in the old
37. Since 2007, some members of major Christian Churches, including Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists, have participated in the Ashes to Go program
38. In which clergy go outside of their churches to public places
39. Such as downtowns, sidewalks and train stations
40. To distribute ashes to passersby