Because of the coverage in Chicago the previous year, many people were looking for resources to launch their own Ash Wednesday ministries. In 2012, Ashes to Go went viral and national. Louis and elsewhere had offered similar ministries for years, but in 2011, the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago chose to coordinate Ashes outreach, and more than 25 Episcopal congregations and organizations around the Chicago area offered ashes on street corners and train platforms, coffee shops and outside grocery stores.
Leaders in the three congregations who offered Ashes to Go agreed that this was too good to keep to ourselves, and we decided to invite others to join us. Many responded with tears or smiles of gratitude that the church would come to them. Those who had no time to attend services or had forgotten about the tradition were delighted to receive ashes with prayer as they began their day. On Ash Wednesday 2010, three Chicago-area Episcopal congregations independently took ashes and prayer to suburban train stations, and discovered commuters hungry for a moment of prayer, renewal and grace. But God meets us not just in worship, but in the midst of life, and we offer the opportunity to remember our faith to those whose schedules make it hard to stop and pray with others on a busy Wednesday. There is much more to the beginning of Lent than ashes alone, and we encourage you to make time for worship with a community of faith, for the support of others and of the great traditions of faith in our work of repentance and renewal. We probably need it more when we are in the middle of our daily business! The ashes we receive are to remind us throughout the day of our need for God, and of God’s call to us.
We take ashes to the street corner because that reminder of need, humility, and healing shouldn’t be confined to a church building. That turning to God is the work of Lent, preparation for the celebration of Easter. The reminder that we are dust turns our attention to the creative power of God, and God’s ability to heal the brokenness in our lives when we offer that brokenness to God. From the Middle Ages it became the custom to begin Lent by being marked in ash with the sign of the cross.
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