In the News

About 20 Episcopal priests fanned out throughout North Jersey and stationed themselves at commuter train stations, bus stops and coffee shops as part of Ash Wednesday services.

The movement — called Ashes to Go — started with Episcopal parishes in St. Louis, Mo., and spread to Chicago suburbs before becoming a nationwide event. This is the first year that priests from the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, which includes parishes in Bergen and Passaic counties, participated.

Commuters outside Newark Penn Station received holy 'Ashes to Go' from the Rt. Rev. Mark Beckwith, Bishop of Newark, in observance of Ash Wednesday on Feb. 22, 2012. Nine photos by Aristide Economopoulos of The Star-Ledger.

Members of Fort Lee’s Church of the Good Shepherd tried something new Wednesday morning, taking part in what they were calling “Ashes to Go” in celebration of Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.

As Rev. Allison Moore of Good Shepherd recently blogged, the Right Rev. Mark Beckwith, Bishop of the Diocese of Newark, asked members of Episcopal churches in North Jersey “to go to train stations, bus stations, busy intersections or other places people gather to offer ashes and a prayer for Ash Wednesday.”

Dozens of people took time from the hustle and bustle of their morning commute today at the Frank R. Lautenberg train station in Secaucus to receive blessed ashes, marking the start of the Christian holy season of Lent.

Joe Cirone, a Somerset County resident who passes through Secaucus on his way to work in New York, stopped to receive the ashes, even though he said he plans to attend a church service later in the day.

Cirone was one of about 50 people who participated Ash Wednesday "Ashes to Go" program, started by an Episcopalian church pastor in St. Louis, Mo., in 2007.

Clergy and lay members of Episcopal churches across the state will hit the streets on Wednesday, Feb. 22, to distribute ashes to mark the start of the Christian holy season of Lent.

The Church of Our Saviour in Secaucus is one of 20 churches in Northern New Jersey participating in the “Ashes to Go” program on Ash Wednesday.

The Rev. Barbara Lewis of the Secaucus church will perform the service at the Frank R. Lautenberg Train Station, located at the intersection of County Road and County Avenue, from 7 to 8 a.m.

In a Star-Ledger op-ed, Bishop Beckwith, Rabbi Matthew D. Gewirtz of Temple B’Nai Jeshurun in Millburn and Bishop E. Roy Riley Jr. of the New Jersey Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, join together to make a faith-based case for marriage equality in New Jersey:

In making it clear that he will veto the marriage equality bill now making its way through the state Legislature, Gov. Chris Christie has ensured that the debate over the morality of gay and lesbian relationships will be with us for months to come.

Was it her big hazel eyes? Was it his dapper moustache? When Pat Moulton and Jim Snodgrass are asked what attracted them to each other, they don't cite these or any other winning feature. No, for her, "It was his real interest in helping." For him, it was the thought that, "Here's someone working full-time and then giving so much" to Toni's Kitchen, the soup kitchen in Montclair, where the two met in 2006 and where they still avidly volunteer. This is their love story, and they're sticking to it.

Ed. note: Toni's Kitchen is a ministry of St. Luke's in Montclair.

The Rev. Karen Eberhardt’s first face-to-face encounter with racial discrimination still resonates, half a century later.

She was visiting the North Carolina drug store where her aunt worked when an African-American woman entered with a boy, two years at the oldest. He made a beeline for the seats at the soda fountain and began spinning around on them.

The Vatican has invited Episcopalians who oppose their church’s liberal leanings to join the Roman Catholic fold, but so far, New Jersey congregations aren’t budging.

Pope Benedict XVI announced Jan. 1 the creation of what’s essentially a nationwide diocese to allow Episcopalian congregations to cross over while preserving some aspects of their Anglican heritage. But despite deep philosophical dissent in the Episcopal Church, church leaders and clergy said they do not expect the Vatican’s measure to spur any exodus by conservatives in New Jersey.

To begin Monday morning's Christian-Jewish Dialogue at Congregation Beth Ahm in Verona, the Rev. Laurin McArthur of Roseland Presbyterian Church read aloud two verses from the Gospel of St. Luke.

"If we get through this, we'll set a record," the reverend prefaced, chuckling.

Such is the nature of weekly round table discussions in which McArthur, the Rev. Lucy Ann Dure of The Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit, Rabbi Aaron Kriegel of Beth Ahm and laymen participants pore over the Bible in intimate detail.