Local churches host Ashes to Go
(Seguin) — Local church congregations are marking the start of the Lenten Season today with the continuation of their “Ashes to Go” event.
For the ninth year in a row, Emanuel’s Lutheran Church is bringing Ash Wednesday to the people of Seguin with the convenient drive-thru format. Marcus Bigott, senior pastor at Emanuel’s Lutheran Church, says “Ashes-to-Go” enables busy people to receive ashes and a blessing from clergy representing both First Presbyterian and Emanuel’s Lutheran Churches.
Bigott says during Wednesday’s lunch hour from noon to one, the parking spaces adjacent to Emanuel’s on Gonzales Street, will become the unconventional home to a historic Christian tradition of receiving a cross of ashes at the beginning of the holy season of Lent.
“Ash Wednesday begins the season of the church year that we call Lent. From the very early days of the Christian faith, there was a time that we as Christians remembered Christ’s passion, his death, his crucifixion and as well as how it ended with the resurrection and Easter Sunday, so Ash Wednesday begins that time of the church year. It has been, as I said from very very on, even back to the Middle Ages, this has been something celebrated by Christians,” said Bigott.
Pastor Bigott says for years the event has been held in the Guadalupe Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore parking lot. He says although this year’s new location is still just around the corner, pastors are ready to greet anyone who pulls into the drive-thru lane whether on foot, bicycle, or vehicle.
“It started out of a way of engaging our community where our community is. Not everyone has the ability to leave work or to take the time from work to join a church service that happens in the middle of the day or a church service that happens at night but wanted to be a part of the ritual and be a part of the worshipping community and so our predecessors here at Emanuel’s and I know other pastors around the nation have done so is created a space where we engage the community both in both prayer and marking one another with the sign of the cross with the words ‘remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” But then also, that afforded us something really unique during the pandemic which was a safe way to engage one another outside with a symbol that kept us connected as a Christian community. I know here at Emmanuel’s; we saw actually an uptick in our participation in 2020 as stuff was really heating up. We saw the world shut down in March and then 2021, it was really a sign of hopefulness that we were returning to rhythms that were familiar,” said Bigott.
He says over the years, the event continues to grow attracting more and more people. He says latest record show anywhere up to 75 participants during that one-hour timeframe.
This year’s participants are asked to follow the signs along Court Street directing them down Bowie and Gonzales Streets.
Other churches such as St. James Catholic Church and Our Lady of Guadalupe Church will also be hosting their own respective services. Multiple Ash Wednesday services are being scheduled at these and other various churches throughout the day.