Pope Celebrates Ash Wednesday, Marking Beginning of Lent

Pope John Paul II, his forehead blackened with a traditional sign of penitence, smudged ashes on the foreheads of priests, nuns and monks in an Ash Wednesday service marking the beginning of Lent.

The pontiff traveled across the River Tiber to Rome’s Aventine Hill for the traditional service, in which the use of ashes recalls Roman Catholicism’s traditional symbol of penitence and humility.

“At the beginning of Lent, on Ash Wednesday, Christ calls us to the interior truth of our actions: to alms giving, to prayer and to fasting,” John Paul said during a Mass celebrated in the basilica of Santa Sabina, the mother church of the Dominican order.

Midway through the service, French Cardinal Gabriel-Marie Garrone blackened a spot on John Paul’s forehead with ashes made from blessed palm leaves.

Then the Polish-born Pope dipped his thumb into the ashes and one by one smudged the foreheads of the assembled cardinals, bishops, priests, nuns and monks.

“Remember, man, that you are but dust and into dust you will return,” John Paul said as he distributed the ashes with the traditional prayer that reminds humanity of its mortality.

Earlier, during his regular Wednesday audience at the Vatican, John Paul told about 6,000 pilgrims and tourists that Lent is “a time which calls us to spiritual renewal of mind and heart.”

“During the weeks between now and Easter, the church invites us to live in a deeper way the mystery of the cross of Christ in order to prepare ourselves to celebrate more fully the Resurrection of our savior,” he said. “I pray that this Lenten season will bring us all to a greater knowledge and love of Jesus, our suffering and risen savior.”

Lent is the period of 40 days, excluding Sundays, between Ash Wednesday and the day before Easter.