Today is Ash Wednesday one of the most symbolic dates of the Mexican calendar. This day many people come to receive ashes. The tradition of the ash has to do with the Jewish use as a sign of mourning and pain for some misfortune. Today we use the ashes as a symbol of sorrow for things we have done in our lives against our conscience, face to face God and neighbor. The ash is a symbol that we want to change your life, be different, be better. The ash symbolizes that we alone can not be. In the same way that Ash can not grow anything, either of our own forces can grow many times something good. We need God. So bless the ashes we wear on the head as a symbol of the presence of God for us to get our ills, real.
ash is not a sign of pessimism, to create in us a passive resignation to the fate the contrary, is a sign of hope in the powerful mercy of God that acts on all our lives out of our ashes a new fire, a light to the darkness. Ash talks about the need to not be drawn by materialism, to give things necessary on the other hand, its true value, to give life its true meaning, not just in the ashes of this world but beyond the expiration of the existence 
Lent begins today, while from the third century AD has grown to accompany the preparation of the Christian community to the experience of death and the resurrection of Jesus. What originally was two days before Easter became the quarantine that replicates one of the quintessential biblical numbers. About forty years was the people at the Exodus, and Jesus spent forty days in the desert, so the Christian community dedicated forty days to prepare for the Paschal Mystery. For many centuries shape of Lent was varied, both in the number of days, and in terms of practices that are lived in this period. Today this time begins on Ash Wednesday to the forty days have indicated in your name, (let me ask you the numbers: six weeks before Easter, is forty-two days, except Sundays which are not considered penitential days, da thirty-six days, plus the four that are added from Ash Wednesday to the first Sunday of Lent, the forty join. There are other calculations but this is the most traditional). 
During this time inviting the Christian community to live with greater austerity why are the rules of fasting and abstinence. Fasting is to eat one meal per day, restricted to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Abstinence is not eating meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays of Lent (although it can be replaced by a good deed, or other sacrifice or a moment of prayer.) These practices only make sense if they are signs of a change of life, which begins with self-restraint to material things, and the self-denial, to share with those in need. Lent begins today. Today begins a time to believe that where there was ash in one's life, there is the possibility, supported by God and our decision to start over.
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