MORE On When To Wipe The Ashes Off

A reader writes:

Tonight my family and I went to Ash Wednesday Mass. We came home and immediately prepared ourselves for bedtime since it was already way past kids’ bedtime, and I wondered what to do with the ashes on our faces.  If Ash Wednesday Mass is in the morning, then typically the ashes gradually fade over the course of the day, and so I don’t feel bad to wash the residual ash off my face– the ashes served their purpose most throughout the day. But this evening when I arrived home it seemed disrespectful to immediately remove the ashes that had only been on for 30 minutes and unseen by anyone outside church. 

My wife stuck to her extensive face-washing routine, and I (hey, I’m a guy) left my face ‘as is’, with the exception of some gentle and reverent blotting to clean off excess ash that might soil the bed linens.

Does the Church teach specifics how to treat the ashes once applied to the forehead?  For example, how long should we wear the cross on our forehead?  And in what manner should we wash-off?

The Church does not require us to get ashes on our heads in the first place. It’s a custom, but the individual members of the congregation are not bound to go forward to receive them.

Neither is there a mandate about how long they should say on. If they stay on for a long time and others see them then that is a side benefit, but their real purpose is to remind you of your mortality (hence what the priest says when he puts them on you) and your need to repent.

Once that goal is accomplished, you can wash them off at any time–especially to avoid things like getting them on bedsheets–though if you can leave them on longer then it is a good public testimony to one’s faith.

I would definitely not have them on the day after Ash Wednesday. Then you’d look like a nut and the good of a public witness would be undone.

There also is no specific manner mandated for washing them off. Just don’t be deliberately respectful as you do so.

Incidentally. lightly blotting the ashes would have never worked for me yesterday. So as to be a better public witness, at Mass at Catholic Answers, Fr. Serpa put BIG BOLD BLACK CROSSES on everyone’s foreheads, not the customary small grey smudges you get most places. We had ashes falling on our clothes all day, and the ashes were so dense that there would have been plenty left to get on my pillowcase if I hadn’t washed them off first.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

10 thoughts on “MORE On When To Wipe The Ashes Off”

  1. A lady at work got the ashes on top of her head. Her priest had just come back from Rome and said thats how its done there. Never heard of that. Anybody got a clue to getting ashes sprinkled on your crown?

  2. When Jimmy talked about the big thick ashes being on everybody’s foreheads at CA, I just had this image of people banging their foreheads agaist the walls to leave marks and remove some of the ashes at the same time.
    I suppose this is one reason why my wife stays at home with our son and not me.

  3. Did the other article on when to wipe the ashes off, disappear? I just posted to it this morning but it doesn’t seem to be showing up.

  4. “Just don’t be deliberately respectful as you do so.”
    You mean “disrespectful” right?

  5. “A lady at work got the ashes on top of her head. Her priest had just come back from Rome and said thats how its done there. Never heard of that. Anybody got a clue to getting ashes sprinkled on your crown?”
    Watching EWTN last night I could confirm that His Holiness, at least, does indeed apply ashes in that way (which makes a great deal more sense to me than the smudge on the forehead, if it is to be a sign of sorrow, penitence and humility.)

  6. I also received ashes on the top of the head from the pope when I was a student in Rome (1988 to 1991). It’s the Biblical way.
    Also, if you look at the Latin “Missale Romanum” (from which our English “Sacramentary” is translated), it says on Ash Wednesday that the ashes are to be “made from branches of OLIVE trees, or of other trees, which were blessed in the preceeding year.” The preference of tradition is olive branches, though palm branches have also been used.
    Then, on “Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord” (as the Latin entitles it), that is why you see photographs of the pope carrying olive branches, rather than palm branches. In fact, the first antiphon that is to be chanted at the beginning of the procession on Passion Sunday is as follows. “The children of the Hebrews, bearing olive branches, went before the Lord, shouting and saying, ‘Hosanna in the highest.'”

  7. Mass attendance on Ash Wednesday was higher than I’ve ever seen at our church, including Christmas or Easter, something that always strikes me.
    Since we are reading the Gospel account of Mark this year, I used the lesser known “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel” prayer while imposing ashes (based on Mk 1:15).
    I find that using the edge of my thumb instead of the middle of it makes a nice, distinct stroke so the cross actually looks like a cross, instead of a grey blob. I do tend to make it plenty prominent, though.
    I pray that all of you would experience a holy and prayerful lenten season,
    Deacon Chris

  8. I lived in Rome for years, and in Europe in general the custom is to place the ashes on the top of the head. This comes from the “sackcloth and ashes” tradition. Presumably, Job didn’t sit down and daub some ash over his eyebrows.
    On Ash Wednesday, the Holy Father traditionally celebrates Mass at Sant’ Anselmo on the Aventine hill and then processes to Santa Sabina a little further down the road. Since the church was designed for a monastery, the pews face in, as if the whole nave were a choir. Dominicans on one side, Benedictines on the other. It is lovely and rich in history (reminds one of rival theological schools staring each other down centuries ago).
    The ashes are given on top of the head. Maybe that was a more obvious symbol for others back in the days of tonsure.
    On a light note, both tonsure and ashes are NOT adumbrated in the Scriptural account of Pentecost, because the tongues of fire of the Spirit, arguably, did not burn the flesh.

  9. I’m jumping into this a little late, but I noticed on Ash Wednesday the Gospel tells us to wash our faces when we fast. I always wash my ashes off right way so I don’t appear to be any different.

  10. I know that I am extremely late on this conversation, but it just seems like you are ashamed about your faith by washing them off immediately so as not to look “different”. I see today, Ash Wednesday, as one of the few days where I can teach others about my faith. Many come up to me and tell me about the dirt on my forehead, and I tell them why the ashes are there.

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