As we celebrate Purim this year, we should embrace both the joy and the responsibility that come with it. Mordechai’s ...

In the Old Testament, ashes were often paired with the wearing of sackcloth — an uncomfortable, scratchy fabric. Together, “sackcloth and ashes” represented several human conditions ...

When pronouncing these judgments, Jesus makes reference to sackcloth and ashes as a form of penitence. As early as the ninth ...

During that time they did acts of penance, like extra praying and fasting, and lying “in sackcloth and ashes,” as an outward action expressing interior sorrow and repentance. The customary ...

They abstain from food and wear sackcloth and ashes as a sign of mourning and penance. They are liturgically literate and ritually right. They want to draw closer to God, and this is the way they ...

The purpose of ashes dates back to early Roman practices, according to britannica.com. Serious sinners and penitents began a public penance on the first day of Lent. These people wore sackcloth ...