Days after priests and students burn palm fronds in the chapel at the Athenaeum of Ohio-Mount St. Mary's Seminary, the acrid odor remains.

        “It's a reminder of Lent,” says the Rev. Jeff Kemper, dean of the seminary. The smell reflects “the idea of penitence, the acridness of sin.”

        Today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period observed by Christians of repentance and reflection that leads to Easter and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

        Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians — and increasingly, members of other Protestant churches — observe the day with the sign of a cross marked on their foreheads with ashes from Palm Sunday's palm fronds.

        The tradition dates to the ninth century, and even earlier, when people covered themselves in ashes as a sign of mourning.

        Seminarians at the Athenaeum tucked palm branches from last year behind religious pictures or crucifixes as a yearlong reminder of Christ's sacrifice and promise.

        During evening Mass on Monday, they burned the fronds in a pot. The ashes were sifted to create a fine dust the consistency of talcum powder that will be used today.

        While some churches burn the palm fronds each year, others turn to resources like Meyer-Vogelpohl, a church-supply store in downtown Cincinnati. They offer a bag of ashes for 100 people for $4.

        “It's easier for them to buy the ashes prepackaged, bless them and use them,” says Nancy Graves, sales and customer service employee.

        Other churches burn in bulk. The Rev. James Bramlage of St. Peter in Chains Cathedral burned a large quantity of palm fronds several years ago. He keeps the ashes in a container on a shelf.

        Typically, daily Mass attendance of 25 to 40 people swells to 400 or 500 on Ash Wednesday, Father Bramlage says.

        “When the ashes are placed on a person's forehead, it symbolizes that Lent is a time to take stock again about what is of value,” he says. “In the Christian sense, what is of value are the things of God, not the things of earth.”

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