Why Isn’t Ash Wednesday a Holy Day of Obligation?

The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast

Ascension

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture

4.9 • 7.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2020

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Why is Ash Wednesday not a holy day of obligation? A holy day is a day that has been consecrated for God, so in that sense Ash Wednesday is a holy day. At the heart of a holy day of obligation, however, is the Resurrection. For this reason holy days of obligation are times to celebrate and feast. Even in the midst of Lent, we feast on Sundays to celebrate Christ’s resurrection.

You may have noticed, Holy Thursday and Good Friday also are not holy days of obligation. This does not diminish their importance, though. It simply makes no sense to celebrate these days as obligatory feasts because they are supposed to bring to mind the death of our Lord and also our own death—our physical death, and our death to self in order to avoid spiritual death. God does not force us to take up our cross and follow him, but he does invite us.

With that said, what better place to go to start Lent than to Mass? It is the beginning of a long journey, and we need the strength the Lord can give us through the Ash Wednesday readings and the Eucharist. And what better way to remind ourselves of the whole point of Lent, that we are dust and to dust we shall return, so we ought to repent and believe in the gospel. Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation, but a holy day of invitation.

For further reading, Fr. Mike mentions the story where Elijah, in a deep slumber, is awoken by a “messenger” who tells him to get up and eat. This story can be found in 1 Kings 19.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh my gosh, did you know that Ash Wednesday is not a holiday of obligation? Huh?
0:05.9	Hi, my name is Fr. Mike Schmitz and this is a sentient present. So did you know that Ash
0:18.9	Wednesday is not a holiday of obligation? You're like, what the heck? My whole life I've
0:22.0	been going to mass on Ash Wednesday, getting ashes on my forehead, getting the Lord in
0:26.6	the Eucharist. And I didn't even know I didn't have to go. That's the question people
0:30.4	ask all the time. It's like, how come Ash Wednesday is not a holiday of obligation?
0:34.7	It seems kind of like a pretty important day. And I would say, you're right. But you know
0:38.1	there's another couple very important days that are also not a holiday of obligation. For
0:41.7	example, Holy Thursday, the day in which Jesus not only gave us the Eucharist, you also
0:46.3	gave us the priesthood, kind of a big day. Good Friday, not a holiday of obligation. The
0:50.7	day in which our Lord Himself offered is everything Himself to the Father and the power
0:57.0	of the Holy Spirit to save the world, kind of a big day, but also not a holiday of obligation.
1:02.2	So why not? Well, let's ask the question, what makes a holiday of obligation? Let's
1:07.2	back up and leave them further. What makes a holiday? Holiday, you might know this already
1:10.8	comes from the word holy day or words holy day. That was for free. There you go. Take it
1:15.8	or leave it. There are many, many holy days. One of the things we believe is Catholic is
1:20.1	that not only has God consecrated and set apart certain places, certain things, you know,
1:26.3	we also got as consecrated time. There are certain times that are set apart. So Sunday
1:31.6	is the day of the resurrection. So that day is a holy day because every week we have this
1:35.9	holy day because God has set it apart is the day in which Christians celebrate the resurrection
1:40.9	of Jesus Christ from the dead. That is a holy day of obligation happens every single week.
1:45.4	So we recognize that the holy day is some kind of day that God has consecrated and the
	...

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