COEUR d’ALENE — A season of personal reflection and redemption begins for many Christians this week as they usher in Lent.

The first of 46 days leading up to Easter Sunday, Ash Wednesday marks the start of a period of preparation when Christians ramp up their spiritual commitments through a blend of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

The faithful will flock to churches throughout the area Wednesday to partake in an ancient act, offering their foreheads to be smudged with ashes in the sign of the cross.

The symbolic gesture hails from Biblical times, said Father Bill Crowley, pastor of St. Thomas Catholic Church in Coeur d’Alene.

"The new members of the church, whenever they fell out of favor, they were put in rags and sat at the entrance of the temple in Jerusalem. Ashes were sprinkled over their heads," Crowley said. "Obviously, this was a sign that this person hadn't done so well, but it also showed that they were willing and wanting to be reunited with the community."

Those who celebrate Ash Wednesday this week are making a similar statement about their commitment to their faith and beliefs, he said.

"It's a way of saying, 'Yes, I realize that I am not perfect, and I'm willing to reform myself in many different ways,'" Crowley said.

The ashes themselves traditionally come from the palms of the previous Palm Sunday, he said. Many churches give worshippers palm leaves on the last Sunday before Easter, commemorating the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem and was greeted by crowds waving fronds and carpeting his path with them.

"Some parishes ask people to return some palms after Easter," Crowley said. "They're all dried and crinkly. They get them all together and have one good bonfire."

He said these days, his church and, he thinks, many others, get them another way — from a religious goods store in Boise.

Church attendance is generally good on Ash Wednesday, he said.

"More and more people think this should really be considered a Holy Day, and it isn't," Crowley said. "There is no requirement that Catholics attend church on Ash Wednesday."

Not all Christian churches observe Ash Wednesday or Lent. They are mostly observed by Roman Catholics, the Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Anglican denominations, and, in Eastern Orthodox churches.

Jeanni Kaminski has been practicing Lenten traditions and rites for a lifetime.

The Rathdrum woman, a member of St. Stanislaus Catholic Church since 1979, considers the days before Easter a time for introspection, prayer and personal change.

"Lent kind of makes you think about the way you act and the way you behave," Kaminski said. "It gives you a chance to maybe start something that maybe you didn't do before."

In earlier years, there was an expectation that a worshipper would "give something up for Lent."

"I had a professor at the seminary in Denver, he always gave up smoking. We avoided him like the plague, because he just snapped at everyone," Crowley said.

The church encourages people to do something in a positive way, he said.

If they are healthy and between the ages of 18 and 59, Catholics are still expected to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Fasters eat one full meal and consume something smaller, not a full meal combined, for breakfast and lunch. Those age 14 and older are expected to abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday and on all Fridays during Lent.

Father Roger LaChance, the pastor of St. Pius X Catholic Church in Coeur d’Alene, said that while fasting and abstinence are important, the purpose of Lent is "expand our hearts, enlarge our souls and improve our minds."

"During Lent we often seem drawn to the concepts of sacrifice and self-denial, and those aren't bad things," he said. "God prefers a full heart to an empty stomach."

There are other types of abstaining to consider, LaChance said.

"How about fasting from catty words or television or the iPod?" he said.

LaChance encourages people to take this time to look at what's missing from their lives.

"The goal is holiness, and the meaning is wholeness," LaChance said. "What do we need more of? Is it patience, joy, trust, compassion?"

Nice crowds attend Ash Wednesday services at St. Pius each year, he said.

The ashes received by worshippers are a reminder of their own mortality.

"Remember you are dust, and unto dust you shall return," LaChance said. "Repent and believe in the gospel, change your life, get it together."