<P> We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ . I invite you, therefore, in the name of Christ, to observe a Holy Lent, by self - examination and penitence, by prayer and fasting, by practicing works of love, and by reading and reflecting on God's Holy Word . </P> <P> Many of the Churches in the Reformed tradition retained the Lenten fast in its entirety, although it was made voluntary, rather than obligatory . </P> <P> Ashes are ceremonially placed on the heads of Christians on Ash Wednesday, either by being sprinkled over their heads or, in English - speaking countries, more often by being marked on their foreheads as a visible cross . The words (based on Genesis 3: 19) used traditionally to accompany this gesture are, "Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris ." ("Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return .") This custom is credited to Pope Gregory I the Great (c. 540--604). In the 1969 revision of the Roman Rite, an alternative formula (based on Mark 1: 15) was introduced and given first place "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" and the older formula was translated as "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return ." 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 . The newer formula makes explicit what was only implicit in the old . </P> <P> Various manners of placing the ashes on worshippers' heads are in use within the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the two most common being to use the ashes to make a cross on the forehead and sprinkling the ashes over the crown of the head . Originally, the ashes were strewn over men's heads, but, probably because women had their heads covered in church, were placed on the foreheads of women . In the Catholic Church the manner of imposing ashes depends largely on local custom, since no fixed rule has been laid down . Although the account of Ælfric of Eynsham shows that in about the year 1000 the ashes were "strewn" on the head, the marking of the forehead is the method that now prevails in English - speaking countries and is the only one envisaged in the Occasional Offices of the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea, a publication described as "noticeably Anglo - Catholic in character". In its ritual of "Blessing of Ashes", this states that "the ashes are blessed at the beginning of the Eucharist; and after they have been blessed they are placed on the forehead of the clergy and people ." The Ash Wednesday ritual of the Church of England, Mother Church of the Anglican Communion, contains "The Imposition of Ashes" in its Ash Wednesday liturgy . On Ash Wednesday, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, traditionally takes part in a penitential procession from the Church of Saint Anselm to the Basilica of Santa Sabina, where, in accordance with the custom in Italy and many other countries, ashes are sprinkled on his head, not smudged on his forehead, and he places ashes on the heads of others in the same way . </P>

What is meaning of ashes on ash wednesday
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