Taken from the Saint Andrew Daily Missal
Today’s station at Rome is at Saint Sabina’s on the Aventine, in a sanctuary built on the former site of the holy martyr’s house. Having been converted by her maid-servant, she was beheaded for the faith and secretly buried. It is to this Church, that in former times, the Pope used to go barefoot “to begin with holy fasts the exercises of Christian warfare, that as we do battle with the spirits of evil, we may be protected by the help of self-denial” [Prayer at the Blessing of the ashes]. In the fifth century it was one of the twenty-five parishes of Rome.
Following the example of the Ninivites, who did penance in sackcloth and ashes, the Church today, to humble our pride and remind us of the sentence of death, which as a consequence of our sins we are bound to undergo, sprinkles ashes on our heads with the words: “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and into dust shalt thou return”. Here indeed, is a thought that should humble our pride.
In this custom we have the remains of an ancient custom referred to in the Roman Pontifical. Those Christians who were guilty of grave faults had to undergo public penance. Accordingly, on Ash Wednesday, the Bishop used to bless the sackcloth which was to be worn by the penitents during the holy Forty Days, and place upon their heads ashes made from palms used the previous year in the Palm Sunday procession. Then, while the faithful were singing the Seven Penitential Psalms, “the penitents were expelled from the holy place on account of their sins, just as Adam was driven out paradise because of his disobedience”. They were not allowed to put off their penitential garb or to re-enter the Church before Holy Thursday after they had gained their reconciliation by toil and penance, and by sacramental confession and absolution.
At the Council of Beneventum (1091) Pope Urban VI commanded that the ashes should be received by all the faithful indiscriminately. Let us receive them in a spirit of humility and penance, that by this powerful sacramental we may obtain from almighty God the blessings which the Church implores in the act of blessing them. For truly, “God overlooks the sins of men for the sake of repentence” (Introit). He is “rich in mercy” to those who are “converted to Him with all their heart in fasting and in weeping and in mourning” (Epistle). We must not indeed, like the Pharisees, rend our garments as a sign of grief, but rather our hearts, for it is not men who are to testify to our fasting, but our Father who sees our innermost souls and will repay us (Gospel), as our Lord Himself tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. Let us then, draw from the Eucharist the help which we need (Postcommunion), so that celebrating today the institution of this sacred fast (Secret), we may “perform it with a devotion which nothing can disturb” (Collect).
Introit: Wisdom xi. 24, 25, 27
Collect: Grant, O Lord, to Thy faithful people that they may begin the venerable solemnities of fasting with becoming piety, and may persevere to the end with steadfast devotion. Through Our Lord…
Epistle: Joel ii. 12-19
Gospel: Matthew vi. 16-21