Ash Wednesday

I attended a very nice Ash Wednesday service at First Pres this evening.  I'm not quite sure when Protestant churches started putting ashes on people's foreheads.  When I was a child that was definitely a Catholic Church practice and not something we did in the Missouri Lutheran Church.  But now many church denominations, Presbyterians included, are dabbing on those ashes.  Interestingly, when I got back to my apartment I rode up in the elevator with five other people (and two dogs) and no one made any comment about the cross shaped mark on my forehead.  Maybe they all knew what it was, although none of them had ashes, or maybe they just assumed that I always walk around with a big smudgy mark on my forehead.