Ash Wednesday in Church Liturgy and Folk Rituals. Tradition and Modernity

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present Ash Wednesday in the liturgy of the Church and to analyze the way of how this day is experienced in the tradition and folk piety, with particular emphasis on customs and rituals. The author makes a reference to the Church’s documents and draws attention to the values that result from the integration of two forms of worship, i. e. liturgy and folk piety. The author drew on the literature on the subject, as well as his stationary ethnographic fieldwork on annual (1990–1994) and funeral rituals (1997–2006) conducted in the Opoczno and Radom subregions. In recent years he also used the method of participant observation.

The article is divided into two parts. In the first one the author recalls the genesis of the Ash Wednesday liturgy and the history of religious rituals performed on that occasion; further he discusses the symbolism of ashes, focusing mainly on the customs that once prevailed in the Polish countryside, namely participation in the liturgy, characteristic fasting meals and penitential clothing. The second part of the study presents Ash Wednesday as the cut-off date between the carnival and Lent period; in the past it was a day of practicing folk rituals of an entertaining nature (e.g. dragging an “Ash Wednesday log” or a “women’s comber – fun”). Many of these customs evoked old pre-Christian Spring rituals, and their practice was for utilitarian gains. The author shows the changes that had taken and are still taking place in Polish society in the perception of the first day of Lent. Moreover, he emphasizes the disappearance of many once popular ceremonies and rituals, highlighting at the same time the relevance and durability of the custom of putting ashes on heads, which still best reflects the meaning of Ash Wednesday.