Let’s talk about Ash Wednesday and Lent
Depending on your faith background, Ash Wednesday and Lent season probably drops into one of the following cognitive buckets:
a time of reflection on what to give up
an important morning to mark as "reserved" in your calendar, or
a scratching of your head as to "why?"
Regardless of your previous history we'd like to offer some cues, curated links, and perspectives for this special season:
How to Explain Ash Wednesday
If Ash Wednesday and the following season of Lent are not or have not been a part of your religious tradition, maybe some context will help. Ash Wednesday is the day that begins the 40 day journey into the season of Lent that culminates in Easter. It is traditionally a time marked by the giving up of something, a time spent in reflection and repentance.
Some Christian traditions have services on Ash Wednesday. Prior to the service, the palm branches used for the celebration of Palm Sunday the year before are burned and the ashes are gathered to be used in the upcoming Ash Wednesday service. People come to the front of the church where a presiding priest will make the mark of a cross on the person’s forehead, or just a smudge, while saying to each person passing through: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
This phrase is known as a “memento mori”—a symbolic phrase or practice that serves to remind people that our time on earth is limited, or to bring to mind this notion: “remember you must die.” This is not unique to Christian culture—it was practiced in Greek and Roman philosophy. The Greek philosopher Socrates states that the singular point of practicing philosophy “is to practice for dying and death.” This was not intended to be depressing, but to serve as a reminder that a meaningful life is only possible when the reality of death is regularly acknowledged.
The act of receiving ashes serves to remind us of the creation story in Genesis where God is said to have taken the dust and formed man, while also reminding us of our mortality. It is a day carved out to call to mind that our time on earth is only so long, our days are numbered, and as uncomfortable as that can be to face (especially in our Western, health and wellness obsessed culture) to come face to face with our finiteness is ultimately a gift.
Even if you’re from a tradition or Christian practice that doesn’t typically commemorate Ash Wednesday, taking time to reflect or incorporate some of the Lenten practices into home life could be a value add for your whole family.
The History of Ash Wednesday
The practice of Ash Wednesday began in the 11th century, but the idea of associating ashes with repentance and grief goes back to the Jewish tradition and can be found in the Hebrew Bible.
The season of Lent started earlier in the Christian church, beginning as 36 days before being made 40 in the 7th century, to match the amount of time Jesus spent in the desert after he was baptized by John the Baptist.
In the early church, baptisms only took place on Easter Sunday, so Lent was the time when all new believers practiced repentance and fasting—modeling Jesus’ time in the wilderness—before being baptized into the larger community of Jesus followers Easter Sunday.
Ash Wednesday for Kids
Books
Kari Baumann (@thechurchlibrarian) recommends these two books for kids when it comes to talking about Ash Wednesday in the liturgical calendar. (If you don’t have these books, or can’t grab them at a library, consider pulling these videos of them being read and watch with your kids!)
The Stuff of Stars (or watch the video here)
Stars Beneath your Bed (or watch the video here)
Movie Activity
Another option to talking about the meaning of Ash Wednesday is to watch/listen to the song, “The Circle of Life” from Disney’s The Lion King and this scene, ending at about 1:12. Point out how Mufasa is a big and powerful king, and Simba will one day be one too! But even kings do not live forever. As Mufasa said, their bodies will one day become the grass the antelope eat. So, even though they may be big and powerful now, they won’t always be. This is how life works, beginning and ending, again and again and again, over and over and over.
When we talk about Ash Wednesday we are remembering, we return to dust one day too. In the creation story, God made the first man with dust and gave him life—life started with dust and ends with dust. How special does that make the time we have alive right now!
Questions for kids:
Does thinking about coming from dust and returning to dust make you feel big or small?
How will you look at the dust or at stars differently knowing how we are connected to them in some ways?
How does knowing something has an end help you appreciate your experience with it right now?
What is one way you have observed the cycle of life? (Ex: Spring, flowers blooming, Fall, leaves falling, Winter, everything appearing dead.)
Ash Wednesday for Older Kids and Teenagers
Older kids and teenagers may be more ready to think through and talk about the more abstract meaning of Ash Wednesday and Lent. Consider some of these following ideas and conversation starters.
Questions for teenagers:
One of the big ideas in Ash Wednesday is realizing that we are human and we will not live forever. That can seem like a depressing thing to think about. Why do you think this is a good thing to remember?
When you are enjoying or participating in something, do you ever think about that thing ending? Why or why not? How do you think that realizing that nothing lasts forever can help you appreciate what good thing you are experiencing?
A common practice in Lent is giving up something for 40 days. What kind of emotions come to mind when you think about giving up something you enjoy? If you were to give something up, what would it be? Why do you think giving something up is part of the practice of Lent? How can it be a good thing?
What is something you have gone without before? What did it feel like in the beginning? What did it feel like as time went on?
Giving up something make more space for something else. What is something you might want to consider letting go of this season, and what would you want to replace it with?
Various Ash Wednesday and Lent Reflections
Richard Rohr
Father Richard Rohr in his Lenten devotional, Wondrous Encounters for Lent, writes:
“There are two moments that matter. One is when you know that your one and only life is absolutely valuable and alive. The other is when you know your life, as presently lived, is entirely pointless and empty. You need them both to keep you going in the right direction. Lent is about both.”
The paradox of Lent, is the paradox of a maturing faith—it is both/and, it is more complex than it first appears, and for that reason it is worth paying attention to.
What are some ways you are reminded that your life is both meaningful and large and also very small? How does that reality influence the way you live?
Khristi Lauren Adams
Khristi Lauren Adams, minister and author, wrote here of what Ash Wednesday means in these incredibly destabilizing first months of 2025. When this year has already felt like such a heavy time of grief, entering Lent as a season of more sadness and seriousness can feel like too much.
“In the face of recent realities, my spiritual life has been marked by a pessimism that I have had a difficult time shaking. Instead of entering Lent with my usual quiet anticipation, I enter wondering: What’s the point? Where’s the hope? Where is God? But through these questions and feelings, I have found reassurance that even in the ashes, even in the dust, there is hope. God does in fact meet us in the dust.”
Head here to read more thoughts on what this season of Lent and specifically Ash Wednesday could look like in an already challenging time.
What is one way you have experienced God being present in a season of ashes? What are areas in your own life where grief feels particularly fresh? How can that experience prepare you for the experience of the 40 days leading up to Easter?
Jay Mercado
In an Ash Wednesday devotional, as part of a Native and Indigenous Lenten Devotional, Jay Mercado writes here about how this time of Lent can be one of intentional restraining from the capitalistic tendency to acquire and accumulate and satisfy, choosing instead to willfully withhold from ourselves—but not just the sake of abstaining. Rather to refrain for the purpose of making room for more—more love, more joy, more contentment.
“Lent becomes increasingly valuable as these cultural impositions persist. Lent is an ancient practice that defies the current logic of our society. Where the elevation of the self and inflation of the ego reigns, Lent invites us to the secret place to commune with God in a most intimate way. We see the tearing of clothes, the grand gestures outside our windows, people parading themselves to be seen. Lent asks us to deny and examine the self, to refrain from something, to learn the discipline it takes to move against the current.”
How do you see an indigenous experience of living in relation to the world and creation impacting the experience and understanding of Lent and the idea of coming from dust and returning to dust?
How do you think a more Western and capitalistic way of life makes this understanding of Lent harder to grasp?
Rachel Held Evans
Finally, we live in complicated times, our obvious differences and digressions from thought, opinion and belief, religiously or otherwise becoming more and more obvious. It can leave us wondering what, if anything, we have in common with those so diametrically opposed from us? Late author Rachel Held Evans wrote in her last blog post before her untimely and unexpected death a word that may mean more in these time then the time she wrote them.
“It strikes me today that the liturgy of Ash Wednesday teaches something that nearly everyone can agree on. Whether you are part of a church or not, whether you believe today or your doubt, whether you are a Christian or an atheist or an agnostic or a so-called “none” (whose faith experiences far transcend the limits of that label) you know this truth deep in your bones: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.”
Death is a part of life.
My prayer for you this season is that you make time to celebrate that reality, and to grieve that reality, and that you will know you are not alone.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
In other words, as different as we may be, and as obvious as those differences may appear, may Ash Wednesday be a reminder that our mortality connects us all, that our fragility unites us all, and that as different as we may appear and actually be, our humanity will always make us more alike than not. To dust we all will return.
