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.”
So a small contingent from the Fort Lee church gathered early Wednesday morning at the bus stop under Lemoine Avenue, where commuters catch buses to cross the George Washington Bridge, and did just that, propping up an “Ashes to Go” sign, with Moore offering ashes and the prayer, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” to anybody who was interested.
“It’s supposed to mean, remember that you are mortal,” Moore explained. “We suffer, and God is with us—not we’re this awful person that needs to grovel.”
