However, it returned in the 19th century when many Protestant churches entered into intentional dialogue with each other and with the Catholic Church, a phenomenon that is called the “ecumenical movement.” With the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, the use of ashes generally fell out of favor in non-Catholic denominations. This period is said to have prepared Christ for his three-year ministry that would culminate in his arrest, crucifixion and resurrection.
Pope Urban II decreed the use of ashes to mark the beginning of a 40-day season of Lent, a time when Christians imitate Christ’s 40-day period of fasting. It was only in 1091, however, that their use was ritualized.
How the practice evolvedĪs early as the ninth century the church started to use ashes as a public demonstration of repentance for sins.
When pronouncing these judgments, Jesus makes reference to sackcloth and ashes as a form of penitence. At one point Jesus condemned the religious leaders as “whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.” He called out the hypocrisy of religious leaders who taught righteousness on the one hand but lived lives of luxury and wealth at the expense of the poor on the other. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus deplores the lack of concern for the poor and marginalized on the part of the establishment of the day, as he passes through some towns. This spiritual dimension of ashes is emphasized all through the Bible. This story was meant to demonstrate that God is merciful and heeds true remorse. God was moved by this genuine act of repentance and spared the city from destruction. In the Bible we are told that when the prophet Jonah pronounced God’s wrath on the city of Nineveh for its “wickedness,” likely because of the worship of idols or “false” gods, the king, in an act of sincere penitence, put on sackcloth and sat in ashes.
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