March 8, 2011
By David Skidmore

Ash Wednesday services will not be confined to church interiors in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago this week. More than two dozen congregations, stretching from Chicago to Dixon, will be taking the Ash Wednesday rite of imposition of ashes to the streets, coffee houses and transit stations of their communities on Ash Wednesday, March 9.

The diocesan-wide initiative, known as Ashes to Go, was conceived by the Rev. Emily Mellot, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Lombard in response to church members regrets about not being able to attend Ash Wednesday services at the church. Few had shown up at her daybreak Ash Wednesday service or the others at noon and early evening, citing work or other commitments. It struck her that the church ought to be taking the Ash Wednesday rite to where the people were at 7 a.m., the commuter rail stations. So last year she floated the idea before her parish's vestry, thinking it would be a project for another year. But the vestry was so taken with the notion "that we were at the Metra station with ashes, poster, handouts and volunteers nine days later."

Other Episcopal churches in Glen Ellyn and Palos Park followed suit, some partnering with local Lutheran churches to offer ash imposition and to hand out flyers on Lenten programs.

Mellott, who said she borrowed the title and concept from an Episcopal priest in St. Louis who offered the Ash Wednesday rite during the lunch hour, said the response last year from commuters was overwhelmingly positive. "We saw Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Christian Reformed – and others who didn't ask about or announce their background. Lots of folks on the train platform pulled out their cell phones and took pictures. People who weren't interested in receiving seemed happy that we were there. One of the other folks told me one commuter said, "I'm so glad you're not another politician!"

At last year's Ashes to Go, Mellott and her eight-member team imposed ashes on the foreheads of 37 people, and the teams at the Palos Park and Glenn Ellyn stations had similar results. Those numbers could be in the triple digits this year with 26 congregations planning to have prayer teams at Metra stations in Arlington Heights, Aurora, Chicago, Elgin, Evanston, Geneva, Glen Ellyn, Lisle, Lombard, Northbrook, Oak Park, St. Charles and Winnetka. Other congregations are sending teams to CTA ‘L' stations, college campuses and nursing homes.

Diocese of Chicago Bishop Jeffrey Lee will offer the imposition of ashes from the plaza of St. James Commons at Huron Street and Rush Street from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, and will preside and preach at the noon Ash Wednesday liturgy in St. James Cathedral.

In a letter to diocesan clergy in February, Lee affirmed the rediscovery of conducting ritual observances and prayer in the public square, noting they can have a powerful impact on people who would never enter churches for an experience of the holy.

"I hope many of us will be bold in offering this ministry to people outside the walls of our churches, he said. "Christ is there."

In DeKalb, a team from St. Paul's Episcopal Church and campus ministry chaplains at United Campus Ministry will impose ashes during the morning class breaks at Northern Illinois University, and at Northwestern University in Evanston a team from the Episcopal campus ministry will be offering the Ash Wednesday rite at the Starbucks café in the student union throughout the morning.

At Stroger Hospital, one of the newest priests in the diocese, the Rev. Carol Reese, will be offering the imposition of ashes to patients throughout the day. Reese is the first paid staff chaplain at Stroger Hospital where her focus is on serving trauma patients.

Mellott and other clergy and lay ministers will be able to offer a brief prayer and imposition of ashes or more developed liturgies, depending on the venue and people's schedules. The worship resources, compiled by Mellott, are composed of prayers, readings, and rites of confession and absolution taken from the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer. Some are for a brief encounter on a rail station platform; others for small group services in coffee shops or other public places.

Taking the Ash Wednesday rite to the streets is modeling what Jesus did in his ministry, said Mellott. As she notes in her introduction to the Ashes to Go: Liturgical Outreach resources, Jesus preached, healed and taught in the public space where the people in need of a sign of hope were. Ashes, she says, "belong to the public spaces and the daily work of our lives, not just to the times and spaces of the regular worshipping community."

As a tool for evangelism it provides a powerful symbol of the church's commitment to meet and engage people in their daily lives, a message that struck home for members of her parish last year, said Mellott. "Several parishioners and others have told me that what matters to them about the ashes is the ability to wear their faith in public, in all the ordinary, everyday things they do. And there's not much more everyday in nature than commuting."

Episcopal News Service
David Skidmore is canon for communication in the Diocese of Chicago.