Happy ASH Wednesday 2023 A.D.!!!

by **ConfederateSS** on Wed Feb 22, 2023 12:36 am

---------- Happy ASH Wednesday :!:

... Remember to get your ashes...40 days until Easter... =D>

...

ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)... O:)

by **HitRed** on Wed Feb 22, 2023 4:50 am

by **jimboston** on Wed Feb 22, 2023 2:27 pm

what is the biblical significance of this ritual?

Does God even tell anyone to smear ashes on there head and walk around all day looking like an idiot?

by **HitRed** on Wed Feb 22, 2023 4:23 pm

It's NOT a holy day of obligation. It is the actual busiest day of the year for the Catholic Church.

by **jimboston** on Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:49 am

HitRed wrote:It's NOT a holy day of obligation. It is the actual busiest day of the year for the Catholic Church.

Was this an attempt to answer my question?

I didn’t claim it was a HDO.
This didn’t answer my question.

by **Dukasaur** on Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:50 am

jimboston wrote:what is the biblical significance of this ritual?

Does God even tell anyone to smear ashes on there head and walk around all day looking like an idiot?

Not one but 10 different Biblical passages support this ancient tradition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday#Biblical_significance_of_ashes

Ashes were used in ancient times to express grief. When Tamar was raped by her half-brother, "she sprinkled ashes on her head, tore her robe, and with her face buried in her hands went away crying" (2 Samuel 13:19). The gesture was also used to express sorrow for sins and faults. Ashes could be symbolic of the old sinful self dying and returning to the dust. In Job 42:5–6, Job says to God: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

The prophet Jeremiah calls for repentance by saying: "O daughter of my people, gird on sackcloth, roll in the ashes" (Jer 6:26). The prophet Daniel recounted pleading to God: "I turned to the Lord God, pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes" (Daniel 9:3). Just prior to the New Testament period, the rebels fighting for Jewish independence, the Maccabees, prepared for battle using ashes: "That day they fasted and wore sackcloth; they sprinkled ashes on their heads and tore their clothes" (1 Maccabees 3:47; see also 4:39).

Examples of the practice among Jews are found in several other books of the Bible, including Numbers 19:9, 19:17, Jonah 3:6, Book of Esther 4:1, and Hebrews 9:13. Jesus is quoted as speaking of the practice in Matthew 11:21 and Luke 10:13: "If the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago (sitting) in sackcloth and ashes."