{"id":5237,"date":"2026-02-18T08:23:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5237"},"modified":"2026-02-18T08:23:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:23:31","slug":"ash-wednesday-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/ash-wednesday-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Ash Wednesday 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>
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If you\u2019ve been a Morning Reflections reader for a few years, you know that on Ash Wednesday we typically use a Q&A format to address some of the questions associated with this first day of Lent.\u00a0What\u2019s different this year?\u00a0Check out the section below that deals with the special topic we\u2019ll be pursuing between now and Easter<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
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What exactly is Lent?<\/em><\/strong>
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The word comes from the Old English term for \u201clengthen.\u201d\u00a0As Easter approaches, the amount of daylight grows longer.\u00a0

More than a thousand years ago, followers of Jesus began to set aside the 40 days before Easter as a kind of annual spiritual journey \u2013 an opportunity to reconnect with God in specific ways.\u00a0This reflects the 40 days that Jesus himself spent in the wilderness, fasting and praying, just before the start of his public ministry.

This year Easter is April 5. If you do the math, you\u2019ll discover there are actually 46 days between February 18 and the first Sunday in April.\u00a0The six \u201cextra\u201d days represent the six Sundays during Lent.\u00a0Some Christians treat these Sundays as \u201clittle Easters\u201d \u2013 rest stops on the journey in which some folks choose to step back, for 24 hours, from their Lenten commitments.\u00a0
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By Lenten commitment, do you mean giving something up?<\/em><\/strong>
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Yes, a number of people choose to give up something for Lent.\u00a0Think of taking something out of your backpack before beginning a 40-day hike.\u00a0\u201cI choose not to carry this around with me for the next six weeks.\u201d\u00a0

During the Middle Ages it was common for Christians to give up meat, sugar, eggs, and butter throughout Lent.\u00a0Nowadays it\u2019s more typical for Westerners to surrender one of those things that can so easily become addictive \u2013 perhaps soda, coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, television, social media, or video games.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t take much for us to realize that these are probably things we could and should surrender for far longer than 40 days.\u00a0
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Can Lent also be a time to \u201ctake on\u201d a new habit or practice?<\/em><\/strong>
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Absolutely. The balance, in fact, is quite healthy.\u00a0Just as we leave something behind on this spiritual journey, we also pick up a new perspective or behavior or commitment.\u00a0

For you that might be an accelerated pattern of personal prayer or Bible reading.\u00a0It could mean writing a daily thank-you note to 40 different people or choosing to offer a special word of encouragement to someone every day. It might mean pursuing a specific plan to serve the poor or to help bring justice to someone who is oppressed.\u00a0The options are endless.
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Will the Morning Reflections have a special Lenten focus this year?<\/em><\/strong>
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Yes.\u00a0Our plan is to go word for word and line by line through the Apostles\u2019 Creed \u2013 one of the church\u2019s earliest expressions of what it means to trust Jesus.
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What if you were asked to summarize Christian theology in 107 words? The Apostles\u2019 Creed does just that in three primary sections \u2013 highlighting God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit \u2013 adding crucial statements about the church, forgiveness, judgment, and our future life with God.
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After some introductory reflections this week (asking questions like, why exactly do we need a creed if we have a Bible?), we\u2019ll devote each of our 30 remaining Lenten reflections to examining a single word or phrase, right up to Good Friday.
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It will be a joy to pursue this six-and-a-half-week journey with you.
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But isn\u2019t Lent just for Catholics and Episcopalians?<\/em><\/strong>
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In truth, these special days are celebrated across the entire Christian denominational spectrum.\u00a0But since they got traction during the Middle Ages, their association with Catholicism and the Church of England has been particularly long and strong.
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What do the ashes mean?<\/em><\/strong>

Many followers of Jesus smear ashes on their foreheads in the shape of the cross on this first day of Lent.\u00a0This tradition reflects a number of images from Scripture.\u00a0

There we learn that life is fragile (“ashes to ashes and dust to dust”).\u00a0We recall the ashes of incinerated sacrifices: our surrender of something we count valuable in order to gain something even more valuable \u2013 a heart that is turned toward God.\u00a0And we remember that people in Bible times, in order to express extreme anguish over the condition of their souls, would sometimes sit in sackcloth and ashes. For many Christians, Lent is an annual season of repentance \u2013 thinking soberly about our lives and resolving to pursue the Lord will greater diligence.
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One poignant Catholic tradition is to incinerate the palm leaves used in the prior year’s Palm Sunday service, and to keep them for use on Ash Wednesday.\u00a0

This day is essentially a time to remember not only that life can be hard, but that it\u2019s really <\/em>hard to try living apart from a relationship with God.
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What if I completely blow my Lenten commitments?<\/em><\/strong>
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As we point out each year, you won\u2019t be the first person.\u00a0Or the last.\u00a0

Always remember:\u00a0God won\u2019t love you more if you think you \u201csucceed\u201d in following him.\u00a0And God won\u2019t love you less if you fall flat on your face.\u00a0

What comes, after all, at the end of the season of Lent?\u00a0We arrive at the cross, where Jesus died for our sins and failures.\u00a0

And then comes Easter with its assurance that the worst thing that ever happened to the best Person who ever lived will ultimately bring about the best things that can ever happen to us<\/em>.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0If you\u2019ve been a Morning Reflections reader for a few years, you know that on Ash Wednesday we typically use a Q&A format to address some of the questions associated with this first day of Lent.\u00a0What\u2019s different this year?\u00a0Check out the section below that deals with the special topic we\u2019ll be pursuing… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1080,176],"class_list":["post-5237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apostles-creed","tag-lent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5239,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237\/revisions\/5239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}