BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: For most Christians around the world, this past Wednesday (February 21) was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent -- the 40-day period of repentance and fasting leading up to Easter. Our Belief and Practice segment today is on Ash Wednesday and the day just before.

At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI imposed the traditional ashes on the forehead of penitents. So did the new Archbishop of Washington, D.C., Donald Wuerl.

The day before Ash Wednesday, Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Carnival in other countries is traditionally a time of indulgence before the austerities of Lent. Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday. It's also known as Shrove Tuesday, when some Christians organize pancake races.

All this was explained to us this year by Pastor Steve Buechler of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Pastor STEVE BUECHLER (Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Gaithersburg, Maryland): Shrove Tuesday - the name, first of all, comes from an old English word "to shrive" -- verb "to shrive" -- which means to get rid of or to cast off. And traditionally Christians would, on the day before Ash Wednesday, get rid of all the fat, all the sugar, all of the kinds of things that you weren't supposed to eat during the Lenten fast.

And because they're easy to make and people like to eat them, a lot of congregations use this opportunity to have a pancake supper for everyone. That's a big fellowship event.

(to congregation members at pancake supper): Tonight we're going to make the ashes that we're going to use tomorrow for Ash Wednesday.

It's also the day then that -- here anyway -- we burn the palms from the previous Palm Sunday to make the ashes that we will use for Ash Wednesday.

(to congregation members): And we take these palms, and we burn them. It kind of ties in last year's Holy Week service with the beginning of Lent this year.

I explain to them the significance of the ashes.