a humorous alteration of Ash Wednesday, that Wednesday approximately seven weeks before Easter that
denotes the first
day of Lent in most Western
Christian churches. Lent is a
period of
fasting and penitence for one's sins. It lasts for forty weekdays and commemorates a story from the
Bible where Jesus spent forty days and nights in the wilderness being tempted by the
devil, during which
time he fasted. Ash Wednesday gets its name from the
Roman Catholic practice of a priest placing ashes on the foreheads of worshippers on that
day as a sign of penitence.