{"id":1285,"date":"2021-02-17T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/?p=1285"},"modified":"2021-01-28T12:27:45","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T12:27:45","slug":"ash-wednesday-17-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/2021\/02\/17\/ash-wednesday-17-february\/","title":{"rendered":"Ash Wednesday 17 February"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1287 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2021\/01\/ash-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2021\/01\/ash-2.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2021\/01\/ash-2-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 85vw, 225px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ash Wednesday is a Christian holy day of prayer and fasting. Preceded by Shrove Tuesday, it falls on the first day of Lent, the six weeks of penitence before Easter. It is traditionally observed by Western Christians.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1290 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2021\/01\/cross-on-forehead.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"180\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ash Wednesday derives its name from the placing of repentance ashes on the foreheads of participants in the sign of the cross to either the words &#8220;Repent, and believe in the Gospel&#8221; or the dictum &#8220;Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.&#8221; The ashes are prepared by burning palm leaves from the previous year\u2019s Palm Sunday celebrations. Many Christians begin Ash Wednesday by making a Lenten sacrifice that they will not partake of until the arrival of Easter.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1289 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2021\/01\/food-1-300x156.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"156\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2021\/01\/food-1-300x156.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2021\/01\/food-1.jpg 311w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Traditionally on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and all Fridays during Lent, adult Catholics over the age of 14 abstain from eating meat (ie the flesh of warm-blooded animals). As fish are cold blooded it is acceptable to eat them on fasting days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ash Wednesday is a Christian holy day of prayer and fasting. Preceded by Shrove Tuesday, it falls on the first day of Lent, the six weeks of penitence before Easter. It is traditionally observed by Western Christians. Ash Wednesday derives its name from the placing of repentance ashes on the foreheads of participants in the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/2021\/02\/17\/ash-wednesday-17-february\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Ash Wednesday 17 February&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":572,"featured_media":1286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commemorative-event"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1291,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions\/1291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/culturalcalendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}