Here Is How The Ashes Will Be Placed on You For Ash Wednesday in Buffalo

Who knew that soon after ash Wednesday, we were going to be in for more than a year-long country-wide pandemic?

Things will be a little bit different this year when you go to get your ashes. Of course, many churches will have the option to do drive-thru options to get the ashes and put them on yourself, but if you want to go see your priest, they will not be putting the ashes directly on your forehead.

Instead, the ashes will be sprinkled on the crown of your head. According to WGRZ, Monsignor David LiPuma who leads the clergy at Our Lady of Victory Shrine and Basilica said:

What's most important, even though it's not a visible symbol like it normally is in our past history and our practice, that we went around all day with that ashes marked on our head, but a reminder to all of us that God asked us, Jesus proclaimed in the gospel, do it in secret. Don't do it for show.

Father David Lipuma says this actually dates back very far and this is a thing that Europeans still practice.

“When they were doing penance, they would put on sackcloth and sprinkle ashes on their head, as a sign of their penance, their penitential hearts, but also as a sign of their mortality.”

Check out the video of the demonstration below!