If someone wanted to show their repentant heart, they would wear sackcloth, sit in ashes and put ashes on the top of their head. In the Old Testament, ashes were paired with sackcloth as a symbol of repentance.
These familiar words are spoken every year on Ash Wednesday just before we are marked with ashes as a sign of our mortality and sincere desire to do penance.Īshes have a long and rich history in biblical tradition.
