Ash Wednesday: will you go about your day WITHOUT washing your forehead?

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I’ve been a returned Catholic for a little over a year and a half. This is my second Ash Wednesday. I go to the morning Mass and don’t wash the ashes off all day. I work in a very secular city. One person saw me and commented to another , “It’s Ash Wednesday”. The cashier where I got my bean burrito (no lard) also commented it was Ash Wednesday upon seeing me. I felt good about that. Kind of like being the bearer of good news. But I didn’t get prideful because it also made me a kind of target in the secular city. A nut-case started babbling irrationaly upon seeing me and my boss wouldn’t look at me. But as someone in CAF once posted, “Dang, it feels good to be Catholic”.👍
 
The ashes were put on at 6:30 a.m. washed off approximately 12 hours later. Could not WAIT to get home and get to the soap. Father had a “heavy thumb” and I had ashes in my hairline, mixed in with my eye shadow, and definitely marking me as a sinner on my forehead. 😉

I was at the office first. The next Catholic walked in – with ash marks – and proclaimed, “you beat me!” The third arrived and said, “Do you know what time Masses are scheduled at St. Patrick’s?” It was a nice feeling of community in a secular office place.
 
IrishAm said:
The ashes were put on at 6:30 a.m. washed off approximately 12 hours later. Could not WAIT to get home and get to the soap. Father had a “heavy thumb” and I had ashes in my hairline, mixed in with my eye shadow, and definitely marking me as a sinner on my forehead. 😉

I was at the office first. The next Catholic walked in – with ash marks – and proclaimed, “you beat me!” The third arrived and said, “Do you know what time Masses are scheduled at St. Patrick’s?” It was a nice feeling of community in a secular office place.
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I like to go early and have em all day, but no such luck today; I think it is definitely an opportunity to witness at the very least to the fact that you are catholic and if you can, explain the “why” of it, all the better…I guess it depends on where you live, around the suburbs of L.A. all the latinos know for what’s up but the comment I’ve got most is,“what’s that #@%* on your forehead”, so I get to participate in the beatitudes at the same time 😛
 
I went to an Anglican Church at about 7:30 Pm to get them put on. I took them off soon after the service was finished. I then went down the pub and saw someone with ashes on his forehead and said “I see you’ve just been to an Ash Wednesday service too.” He thought he’d washed them off and told me he’d been to the RC Church. We had some good Christian Fellowship after that, which sent a very good message to the other people around us.

How good it is when brothers dwell in unity.

Thank God for Roman Catholics.​

Denomination: Anglican.

Allegience: Jesus Christ.
 
Yes, I wore them all day. I teach first graders in a public school. One of the kids asked about and I explained it was ashes; something my church did to start a time period called Lent, which always came before Easter. He looked very quizzical and said, “My church doesn’t do that. I bet it hurt!” :rotfl:
 
Lepanto said:
Ash Wednesday: will you go about your day WITHOUT washing your forehead?
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This was the first Ash Wednesday mass I have been to. I went after work, and then went home after mass.

This is a conversation with my DH:

DH: “What is that on your head?”
ME: “Ashes from mass, everyone got one.”
DH: “Are you going to wash it off?”
ME: “No.”
DH: “Not ever?”
ME: “Well maybe not tonight.”

ten or fifteen minutes later

DH: “You should wash that off.”
ME: “I will.”
DH: “How long do you have to keep it there?”
ME: “No rules, as long as I want.”

DD came home, and said, “You’re Catholic!”

No one in my family is Catholic.

I felt like Christ was stuck to my forehead, and I didn’t want to wash Him off. Not literally, of course. Not sure if that is a “right” thing to be thinking, but it is what I was thinking.

I washed it off before I went to bed.
 
RebeccaJ said:
I felt like Christ was stuck to my forehead, and I didn’t want to wash Him off. Not literally, of course. Not sure if that is a “right” thing to be thinking, but it is what I was thinking.

I washed it off before I went to bed.
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That is just what I felt. I could not pin point the correct word to use, but you really captured the idea. It is like having Christ on you head and, I at least, feel ashamed to wipe it off, it is sort of like denying Christ. I always hate wiping it off that night. I wish I could keep it on always, then again my head would get kind of dirty from lack of washing so…I guess it has to come off:D
 
I do not wash my head until the next morning as it proudly shows what I am. I get many questions as a result.
Deacon Ed B
 
Quick question, I heard that you are not supposed to whipe off the ashes that your recieve on Ash Wednesday. I have always gone to evening mass, so it never occured to me, but this Ash Wednesday, I have a test in the evening, so I can’t skip class. I’ll be going to Mass in the morning and just go into work late. My question is, do I leave the ashes on all day and let it just fade away? Or is is okay to whipe it off?

Thanks.
 
Leave them on and let them fade. It is a mark of humility. (Besides, it’s how we all identify one another on the street!)
 
forever_always said:
Quick question, I heard that you are not supposed to whipe off the ashes that your recieve on Ash Wednesday. I have always gone to evening mass, so it never occured to me, but this Ash Wednesday, I have a test in the evening, so I can’t skip class. I’ll be going to Mass in the morning and just go into work late. My question is, do I leave the ashes on all day and let it just fade away? Or is is okay to whipe it off?

Thanks.
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Just leave them on and let them fade.
If your going to wipe them off, just don’t bother going to Mass there is no obligation for Ash Wednesday.
 
Is there a general rule on the ashes? I mean, after it do we wash it off or do we wear them until the next morning?

I’m wearing mine until tomorrow.
 
This just occured to me… I am taking the kids to the 4pm Ash Wed Service, They get their bath at around 6:30-7pm. is it ok to bath them and wash their heads or should I not wash their faces and let the Ashes naturally fade overnight?
 
Sarabande said:
I wear the ashes all day if I attend mass in the morning, but it tends to wear off naturally, so then it looks like dirt on my forehead. But that’s ok.

When I lived in the city, I loved Ash Wednesday, because you could see all the Catholics and people of other denominations who observe Ash Wednesday. It probably sounds silly, but I liked the feeling of unity whenever you’d see them walking the streets in the city. It’s a very large Catholic population there. Now that I live in the suburbs, you don’t see it as often and I think people tend to wash their foreheads more - or at least they probably attend mass in the evenings rather than before work or during lunch break.
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I don’t wash my ashes off and this year it is quite obviously a cross on my forehead. I went shopping and to the library (lost my “cheater” reading glasses somewhere this morning in my rush to get my kids to school and then go get my mother-in-law to take her to Mass with me by 8:00 and since I missed them terribly at Mass, decided to go buy a new pair and get a few other things too) after Mass. I understand your idea about unity. I saw nobody else with ashes and was a bit sad because I thought I’d see brothers and sisters in Christ who know that today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Yesterday, I took my MIL to church for Mass, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Devotions and the Rosary. We stayed to witness the little service that the school kids participate in each year to burn the palms and bury the A_____a, word we don’t use until Easter Sunday 🙂 . Lent is very much on my mind, so I would have liked to have seen others with ashes outside of Church today, just as a visible reminder that this is a Catholic community. Maybe they were busy getting more in the Lenten mindset and being more prayerful, rather than shopping as I was. :o
 
There’s no rule as to how long to keep the ashes on our foreheads. You can do as you wish.
 
Luvs2Learn said:
This just occured to me… I am taking the kids to the 4pm Ash Wed Service, They get their bath at around 6:30-7pm. is it ok to bath them and wash their heads or should I not wash their faces and let the Ashes naturally fade overnight?
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You can wash them off right after Mass if you so desire.
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
If your going to wipe them off, just don’t bother going to Mass there is no obligation for Ash Wednesday.
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I don’t believe it is EVER acceptable to advise someone to NOT attend Mass. And especially for this reason.

There are many reasons why someone may wish to remove their ashes. For me, I’ve had to remove them in the past because they would fall into my eyes and get under my contact lenses and I nearly went crazy with the pain (the parish did not burn the palms enough). So I dusted them off until they were just barely visible.

I just don’t like the idea of telling someone, “well just don’t go then”. Please - ALWAYS go to Mass…there is grace there!!!

~Liza
 
Br.Rich_SFO said:
Just leave them on and let them fade.
If your going to wipe them off, just don’t bother going to Mass there is no obligation for Ash Wednesday.
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Surely you don’t mean to suggest someone should not bother going to Mass just because they would wipe the ashes off. The grace from the Mass and Eucharist are greater than those of the mortification of keeping the ashes on as long as possible.
True, there isn’t an obligation to go to Mass today but nor is there an obligation to keep the ashes on for the whole day.
 
Luvs2Learn said:
This just occured to me… I am taking the kids to the 4pm Ash Wed Service, They get their bath at around 6:30-7pm. is it ok to bath them and wash their heads or should I not wash their faces and let the Ashes naturally fade overnight?
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I would wash their faces. I would not want ashes all over the pillowcases. What if they didn’t fade on their own… we wouldn’t all want to be walking around with what looks like a dirty smudge on our faces for days on end. Can you even imagine…

You have dirt on your forehead.
It’s not dirt, it’s ashes from Ash Wednesday.
Yeah, but today is Friday??

I don’t think the display of ashes on our foreheads matters nearly as much as what’s going on in our hearts. 🤷
 
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