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“We are entering, to-day, upon a long campaign of the warfare spoken of by the Apostles: forty days of battle, forty days of penance.” Thus far the words of Dom Prosper Guéranger. Ash Wednesday, though very old itself, was instituted sometime after the season of Lent, which in Latin is called Quadragesima, or “fortieth”. The addition of these four days preceding the First Sunday of Lent brought the number of fasting days between now and Easter Sunday to exactly forty, because of the universal custom to avoid fasting on Sundays. Ashes have been a symbol of penance and humility since the Old Testament, and they clearly evoke the phrase from Genesis used repeatedly in the liturgy today: “dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return”—a reminder of man’s mortality since the Fall, and of the penance and mortification to which all are called during this season. The imposition of ashes on this day was once reserved for those doing public penance for grave and especially scandalous sins, but as this practice of public penance decreased, the ashes came to be applied to all the faithful. To this day the Church attaches the words of the Prophet Joel: Now therefore saith the Lord: Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning. And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God.