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Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent.  Lent always begins 40 days before Easter, so it always starts on a Wednesday. 

In the early church, its leaders decided that Easter was such an important day, and Jesus' sacrifice was so important that people needed time to remember what Jesus did and prepare to celebrate the gift He gave to all of us. 

Ashes are mentioned many times in the Bible as a symbol of repentance, so there seemed no better way to begin this time of reflection than to start with repentance for our sins. Jesus, through his sacrifice on the cross, demonstrated that our sins were forgiven and through that forgiveness gave us the gift of eternal life. 

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the week that he died, people laid palm leaves on his path.  We celebrate that on Palm Sunday.  Those palms are saved and burned the next year to create the ashes used on Ash Wednesday

There is no greater joy for people who believe in Jesus than celebrating his resurrection on Easter, but to get to that joy we must first be humbled by His great sacrifice for all of us and rededicate ourselves to our faith.  As we begin to prepare for the Great Celebration of Easter, we must remember the road to our Lord's gift of salvation is strewn with the ashes of our failures and weaknesses.