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Families in Colorado may have received fake ashes from a funeral home where nearly 200 decaying bodies were discovered this month, according to information gathered by The Associated Press from customers and crematories. The facility may have also fabricated cremation records, evidence suggests. Families who took the remains of their loved ones to Return to Nature Funeral Home, located on Werner Road in Penrose, fear their relatives weren’t actually cremated and could still be among the unidentified corpses. Authorities found the bodies and began an investigation on October 3, after receiving a report of an "abhorrent smell" emanating from the...

Living in Florida is expensive. You almost have to have a side hustle just to get by. But one woman in Lakeland, Florida launched a side hustle so lucrative she made it her full time gig. She makes jewelry out of breastmilk. No breastmilk? She can also make jewelry from cremation ashes, hair, placenta or umbilical cord. Personalized keepsakes. According to Good News Network, Rachel Heinze of Lakeland left her job as “a professional neuroscientist that specialized in concussions before quitting her job to stay at home with the kids.” That’s quite a leap, but she’s reportedly making $30K a...

A Proper Catholic Understanding of Sacred Tradition and Ecclesiastical Customs by Matthew Plese On May 23rd, Pope Francis told the participants who had gathered for the 21st general assembly of Caritas Internationalis: “It is a mistake for the Church to try to hold onto old traditions or to have clear answers for everything.”[i] Such a statement is contrary to the very foundation of the Church which is built on the two pillars of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. On the contrary, as expressed by Gustav Mahler, the famous Austrian composer, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation...

A high school student mixed her cremated grandfather's ashes into homemade sugar cookies and shared them with several classmates, police in Northern California said Wednesday. The student and a friend baked the cookies and shared them with at least nine classmates at their public charter high school near Sacramento on Oct. 4, said Davis Police Lt. Paul Doroshov. He said the Da Vinci Charter Academy students told some of their classmates that the cookies contained human ashes. He said investigators interviewed nine students who ate the cookies, and said there are other supporting details that he declined to disclose that...

Archaeologists have discovered ashes from one of the biggest ever volcanic eruptions in recorded history. Excavations in Turkey’s ancient city of Smyrna, now located in Izmir, have revealed details from a Minoan eruption that took place some 3,600 years ago. Smyrna was established about 5,000 years ago by the Greek tribe of Aeolians and later inhabited by Ionians. It was mostly abandoned after it was captured by the Anatolian kingdom of Lydia in the 6th century B.C. Archaeologists say the ashes will tell them a lot about the history. “Now that we have identified those ashes with a more extensive...

FOLKESTONE, KENT, UK — A grieving woman plans to pay tribute to her late mother — by seasoning her Christmas meal with her ashes, and then eating them. Debra Parsons, 41, will sprinkle the cremains of her mother, Doreen Brown, on the turkey and dessert. “We will have a place laid for her and a picture of her on the table so she can be with us on the very special day,” Parsons says. The mother-of-two from Kent was left distraught when her mother died in May. She told The Mirror that consuming the ashes is “the only thing that...

I have a friend who is on a CDF crew. He says they sleep on the ashes of the fire they just fought recently to stay warm. I call foul. This sounds like the old wives' tale (why I'm not married) of sleeping inside a gutted animal to stay warm. I wold be worried that my clothing or bedding would ignite. What say you?

Daniel Begay, who is Navajo, had always been told growing up that traditional American Indian foods were good for him. But because most American Indians are lactose intolerant, "they aren't getting that same source of calcium from dairy products," Begay says. Turns out that it's a traditional cooking method that is key to his bone health. The Navajo burn juniper branches, collect the ash and stir it into traditional dishes. The most popular: blue corn mush. Begay, a graduate student at Northern Arizona University, analyzed the amount of calcium in 27 samples of juniper from all over the reservation. But...

How Real Are Your Ashes? Five Meanings of the Ashes We Receive Today Msgr. Charles Pope • February 9, 2016 • Photo Credit: Jaclyn Lippelmann for the Catholic Standard.As a boy, I remember wondering why so many people liked to rush to Church to get ashes smudged on their foreheads. Frankly, I had some revulsion at the idea of having dirty ashes smeared on my forehead. I didn't like it at all and would secretly rub them off when no one was looking. Today, though I'll admit I still don't like it too much, I behave myself and don't...

Japanese man flushes his dead wife's ashes down the loo at a supermarket saying that 'life was such a pain before she died' A Japanese man who hated his dead wife tried to flush her ashes down a toilet in a supermarket, local police said yesterday. Officers were baffled after ashes and human bone fragments, including a chin, were discovered in the toilet bowl at the store in Tokyo. But the 68-year-old man turned himself in to police and revealed he dumped his spouse’s remains there immediately after she was cremated last month.

Why I Don’t Observe Lent The practice of self-denial is to be the daily experience of the believer. Written by Roland Barnes | Monday, March 3, 2014 79 What merit or benefit is there in abstaining from something which God Himself has given us to enjoy and to bless our lives? If something is sinful, we ought to abstain from it, fast from it, every hour of the day, every day of the week, and every week of the year. If something is not sinful and not forbidden to us by God in His Word, then we are free to...

You wouldn’t think that anyone would fight about Ash Wednesday and Lent. For Catholics it’s part of what we do. For others it’s something they can use or not as they find it helpful, and increasing numbers do. Down-the-line Evangelical churches have started to hold special services for Ash Wednesday complete with ashes and to treat the Sundays after it as Sundays in Lent. Rather severely anti-sacramental Evangelicals now speak of giving things up and fasting on Fridays. I find this cheering, but my friend Carl Trueman doesn’t. Carl teaches Church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, the...

Remember That Thou Art Dust David Mills Ash Wednesday is the holy day on which you are asked to face the facts about yourself. Letting someone smear ashes on your forehead while telling you that you are dirt is a statement that you have seen and accepted the facts about yourself, and know they’re not in your favor. And, though this isn’t as obvious, it is also a declaration of the good news.The Church doesn’t give official explanations of what her rites mean, but here’s what I think what is being said through the imposition of ashes. Even if this...

Ash Wednesday is upon us again! Here are 9 things you need to know and share . . . 1. What is Ash Wednesday? Ash Wednesday is the day that Lent begins (see: 9 things you need to know about Lent). The name comes from the fact that a particular rite is always celebrated on this Wednesday in which the faithful have ashes put on their foreheads. According to the Roman Missal: In the course of today’s Mass, ashes are blessed and distributed. These are made from the olive branches or branches of other trees that were blessed the previous...

The cremated remains of nine people who died in the 1978 American cult mass suicide and murder in a South American town have turned up in a defunct Delaware funeral home. The Delaware Division of Forensic Science visited the former Minus Funeral Home along the 200 block of Queen Street in Dover last week after receiving a request to check out the site, officials said Thursday. Once inside, officials say they found 38 containers filled with cremated remains from 1970 through the 1990s. Nine of those remains were identified as victims of the Jonestown, Guyana, massacre.

ARASOTA - Police said a man triggered a hazardous materials investigation on Tuesday when he attempted to spread his fiance's ashes at the Westfield Southgate Shopping Center. Police Lt. Pat Ledwith said the man was still mourning the loss of his fiance who died several months ago. She reportedly had some connection to LensCrafters which is where the grieving man spread part of her ashes at 11:20 a.m., triggering the emergency respons

CALGARY — Calgary police are looking for a group of car prowlers who desecrated the ashes of a 19-year-old crash victim. Among several cars hit during a break-in spree on Aug. 2., was a white truck, where the thieves found a green velvet pouch containing the ashes of a 19-year-old woman killed in a crash four years ago, and a green jacket that once belonged to her, police said. The heartless criminals dumped the ashes, and tossed the pouch on the ground and made off with the jacket among their ill-gotten gains. Police say some ashes were recovered, but rain...

Archaeologists working on Iasos on Turkey’s Aegean coast have recently discovered that the ancient city was buried under a mountain of ash caused by the explosion of Mt. Thera on Santorini 3,600 years ago. Excavation works have also revealed a sewage system that was in place in the 4,000-year-old city and tunnels to the city’s theater... Spanu said columns that were found one meter underground provided vital information about the history of the city. “Following the explosion of the volcano Thera, which also caused the destruction of the Minoan civilization on the islands of Crete and Santorini, the ancient city...

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s ashes have been laid to rest in London at a service attended by her family and closest friends. … Thatcher, who led Britain from 1979 to 1990, died aged 87 in April. …

An inspired spell of fast bowling from Stuart Broad catapulted England to a 74-run win over Australia in the fourth Test and sealed victory in the Ashes series. Chasing 299 for victory, Australia were well placed on 168-2 but lost their next eight wickets for 56 runs as they collapsed to 224 all out. Tim Bresnan turned the tide when he had opener David Warner caught behind for 71 and Broad followed up with a devastating burst of 6-20 in 45 balls to finish with 11 wickets in the match. A breathless and barely believable evening session, in which nine...