Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season. It is the seventh Wednesday before Easter Sunday. Many filipino catholics go to church to hear mass and have their forehead marked with a cross of ashes as a sign of penitence and mortality.

Traditionally, a priest marks each worshipper on the forehead, and says “remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return“, or a similar phrase based on God’s sentence on Adam in Genesis 3:19.

Ashes were made by burning palm or “palaspas” as we call it in the Philippines from the previous year’s Palm Sunday, is very symbolic. We, as christians, leave the mark on our forehead as long as it fade.

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