Editing Ash Wednesday (section)

===Commination Office===
[[File:AshWednesdayAltar.jpg|thumb|St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis, Tennessee on Ash Wednesday 2011. The veiled [[altar cross]] and purple paraments are customary during Lent.]]
Robin Knowles Wallace states that the traditional Ash Wednesday [[church service]] includes Psalm 51 (the ''Miserere''), prayers of confession, and the sign of ashes.<ref name="Wallace2010">{{cite book|last=Wallace|first=Robin Knowles|title=The Christian Year: A Guide for Worship and Preaching|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m_P7BUQZVvsC&pg=PT49|year=2010|publisher=Abingdon Press|isbn=9781426731303|page=49|quote=The service for Ash Wednesday has traditionally included Psalm 51, prayers of confession and the sign of ashes, often in the shape of a cross.}}</ref> No single one of the traditional services contains all of these elements. The Anglican church's traditional Ash Wednesday service, titled ''A Commination'',<ref name="EnglandMant1825">{{cite book|last=Mant|first=Richard|title=The Book of Common Prayer: And Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the United Church of England and Ireland: Together with the Psalter Or Psalms of David, Pointed as They are to be Sung Or Said in Churches; and the Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion: with Notes Explanatory, Practical and Historical, from Approved Writers of the Church of England|year=1825|publisher=W. Baxter|page=510}}</ref> contains the first two elements, but not the third. On the other hand, the [[Catholic Church]]'s traditional service has the blessing and distribution of ashes but, while prayers of confession and recitation of Psalm 51 (the first psalm at [[Lauds]] on all penitential days, including Ash Wednesday) are a part of its general traditional Ash Wednesday liturgy,<ref name=Sweeney/> they are not associated specifically with the rite of blessing the ashes.<ref name="L'abbaye Saint Pierre de Solesmes">{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNjXBMdnWSY&t=1077s |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220614134511/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNjXBMdnWSY&t=1077s |url-status=dead |archive-date=14 June 2022 |title=Traditional Gregorian Chants|last=L'abbaye Saint Pierre de Solesmes|first=Congregation|website=YouTube}}</ref>

The rite of blessing has acquired an untraditionally weak association with that particular psalm only since 1970 when it was inserted into the celebration of Mass, at which a few verses of Psalm 51 are used as a [[Psalms#Catholic usage|responsorial psalm]].  Where the traditional Gregorian Chants are still used, the psalm continues to enjoy a prominent place in the ceremony.<ref name="L'abbaye Saint Pierre de Solesmes"/>

In the mid-16th century, the first [[Book of Common Prayer]] removed the ceremony of the ashes from the liturgy of the [[Church of England]] and replaced it with what would later be called the Commination Office.<ref>{{cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ezVH2h6PKUcC&q=%22Ash+Wednesday%22+commination+office&pg=PA564|chapter=Glossary|page=564|title=[[The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey]]|isbn=9780199723898|last1=Hefling|first1=Charles|last2=Shattuck|first2=Cynthia|year=2006|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|location=New York }}</ref> In that 1549 edition, the rite was headed: "The First Day of Lent: Commonly Called Ash-Wednesday".<ref name="EnglandMant1825A">{{cite book|last1=Mant|first1=Richard|title=The Book of Common Prayer: And Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the United Church of England and Ireland: Together with the Psalter Or Psalms of David, Pointed as They are to be Sung Or Said in Churches; and the Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion: with Notes Explanatory, Practical and Historical, from Approved Writers of the Church of England|year=1825|publisher=W. Baxter|location=Oxford|page=506}}</ref> The ashes ceremony was not forbidden, but was not included in the church's official liturgy.<ref name=EB1911/> Its place was taken by reading biblical curses of God against sinners, to each of which the people were directed to respond with Amen.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brand |first=John |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_8nY9AQAAMAAJ/page/n54 |title=Observations on the popular antiquities of Great Britain: chiefly illustrating the origin of our vulgar and provincial customs, ceremonies, and superstitions |last2=Ellis |first2=Henry |last3=Halliwell-Phillipps |first3=J. O. (James Orchard) |date=1873 |publisher=London, Bell & Daldy |others=University of California |pages=98}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Livingstone |first=E. A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DZecAQAAQBAJ&q=Commination |title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church |last2=Livingstone |first2=Elizabeth A. |date=2013-09-12 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-965962-3 |language=en |chapter=Commination}}</ref>

The text of the "Commination or Denouncing of God's Anger and Judgments against Sinners" begins: "In the primitive Church there was a godly discipline, that, at the beginning of Lent, such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance, and punished in this world, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others, admonished by their example, might be the more afraid to offend. Instead whereof, until the said discipline may be restored, (which is much to be wished,) it is thought good that at this time (in the presence of you all) should be read the general sentences of God's cursing against impenitent sinners".<ref>Full text at [http://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/book-of-common-prayer/a-commination.aspx the website of the Church of England] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140413154726/http://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/book-of-common-prayer/a-commination.aspx |date=13 April 2014 }}</ref> In line with this, Joseph Hooper Maude wrote that the establishment of ''The Commination'' was due to a desire of the reformers "to restore the primitive practice of public penance in church". He further stated that "the sentences of the greater excommunication" within ''The Commination'' corresponded to those used in the [[early Christianity|ancient Church]].<ref name="Maude1901">{{cite book|last=Maude|first=Joseph Hooper|title=The History of the Book of Common Prayer|url=https://archive.org/details/historybookcomm00maudgoog|year=1901|publisher=E.S. Gorham|page=[https://archive.org/details/historybookcomm00maudgoog/page/n118 110]|quote=The Commination. This service was composed in 1549. In the ancient services, there was nothing that corresponded at all nearly to the first part of this service, except the sentences of the greater excommunication, which were commonly read in parish churches three or four times a year. Some of the reformers were very anxious to restore the primitive practice of public penance in church, which was indeed occasionally practiced, at least until the latter part of the eighteenth century, and they put forward this service as a sort of substitute. The Miserere and most of what follows were taken from the Sarum services for Ash Wednesday.}}</ref>

The Anglican Church's Ash Wednesday liturgy, he wrote, also traditionally included the ''[[Psalm 51|Miserere]]'', which, along with "what follows" in the rest of the service (lesser Litany, Lord's Prayer, three prayers for pardon and final blessing), "was taken from the [[Sarum Use|Sarum services]] for Ash Wednesday".<ref name="Maude1901"/> From the Sarum Rite practice in England the service took Psalm 51 and some prayers that in the Sarum Missal accompanied the blessing and distribution of ashes.<ref name=Sweeney>[https://books.google.com/books?id=u2ZV_f4uZUEC&pg=PA110 Sylvia A. Sweeney, ''An Ecofeminist Perspective on Ash Wednesday and Lent''] (Peter Lang 2010 {{ISBN|978-1-43310739-9}}), pp. 107–110</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=5zoLAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA431 Bernard Reynolds, ''Handbook to the Book of Common Prayer'']  (Рипол Классик {{ISBN|978-58-7386158-3}}), p. 431</ref> In the Sarum Rite, the ''Miserere'' psalm was one of the seven penitential psalms that were recited at the beginning of the ceremony.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/sarumm00cath|page=[https://archive.org/details/sarumm00cath/page/52 52]|title=The Sarum Missal in English|publisher=Church Press Company|last1=Church|first1=Catholic|year=1868}}</ref> In the 20th century, the Episcopal Church introduced three prayers from the Sarum Rite and omitted the Commination Office from its liturgy.<ref name=EB1911/>