Reply #211: Catholics go to church on Ash Wednesday to have a priest make the shape of a cross on their forehead

[amandabeech]

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. It is the only day of the calendar on which Catholics wear ashes.

Good Friday is the day on which Christ was crucified and died on the cross. That day involves no ashes, but Catholics have a special service referred to as "Stations of the Cross."

Nuns, to my knowledge, have never covered their faces, and their traditional habits generally show a bit more of the female form than, say, a chador.