Tri-State Church Offers Drive-Thru Ashes

CINCINNATI -- An Ohio church is offering a drive-thru Ash Wednesday blessing for parishioners pressed for time or reluctant to come inside the church for the Lenten observance.

The Rev. Patricia Anderson Cook of Mt. Healthy United Methodist Church in Mount Healthy offered the ashes Wednesday evening for people of all faiths beginning around 5 p.m. in the church parking lot. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Christian season of Lent, which concludes after 40 days with the celebration of Easter, and the faithful traditionally have a smudged cross drawn on their forehead.

...Cincinnati Archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco said for the Cincinnati region's many Roman Catholics, getting ashes still calls for attending a service.

Some Cincinnati area Catholics might be taking part in another Lenten tradition: McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwiches were pioneered in Cincinnati in the early 1960s by a franchisee, the late Lou Groen, who was trying to offset business being lost when Catholics abstained from eating meat on Fridays.

Read more: http://www.wlwt.com/news/30512301/detail.html#ixzz1nCkMVZqm