Kathy Grattan was scrambling to catch the 8:01 train yesterday morning when she was greeted by two women wearing white and purple vestments next to the tracks at Beverly Depot.
"Good morning," said Gay Cox, a deacon at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Beverly. "We're offering ashes. It's Ash Wednesday."
Grattan is a busy woman. She is seven months pregnant — with twins — and was on her way to her job as an epidemiologist in Boston. But she paused for a few moments to allow Cox to mark ashes on her forehead with the sign of the cross while saying, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
"This is great," Grattan said after the short ceremony. "I usually go in Boston to a half-hour service. I've never seen anything quite like this."
Amid the squeal of train wheels and the smell of diesel fuel, about three dozen commuters took advantage of Ashes to Go, a service provided by six members of St. Peter's Episcopal in three shifts from 5:30 to 8:30 a.m.
The church members set up a table at the train depot and offered commuters the chance to take part in a custom on the first day of Lent that is usually held in the quiet sanctuaries of Christian churches. According to literature handed out by St. Peter's parishioners, the ashes are a reminder that humans are dust and "turns our attention to the creative power of God."
Most commuters walked briskly past the table, either staring straight ahead or politely declining. Others slowed down to ponder the out-of-context scene, with an "Ashes to Go" sign sitting on the table next to the ashes, which were stored in a clear plastic Glad container.
When the 7:46 train pulled into the station, the engineer stuck his head out the window to see what was going on. Asked if he wanted to receive the ashes, he lifted his Red Sox cap to reveal a black mark on his forehead.
"I already did," he said.
Earlier in the morning, the engineer and conductor of one train both got off to receive their ashes, said Godfrey Perrott, a St. Peter's parishioner who worked the early shift.
"It was really fun," Perrott said.
In each case, the ritual took less than a minute. Cox and Deborah Walker, a parishioner who assisted, placed their hands on each recipient and read a short prayer as Cox dipped her thumb in the ashes and rubbed them on the person's forehead.
"It was very personal," said Grattan, who described herself as "sort of Catholic." "I felt like they were connecting with me. Maybe in this day and age, this is the way it is, sort of fast-food religion."
Diane Kelly, a 16-year-old Beverly High School junior on school vacation, was on her way to visit her sister in New Jersey. Kelly said she attended an Episcopal church growing up and is now a Quaker.
"Most Quakers don't do this," she said. "My family has done it at home using those black strips on printer paper (as the ashes). It's sort of honoring the tradition and honoring the faith of being a Christian."
Beverly resident Arthur Kovacs agreed to have Cox read him the prayer. But he declined the ashes, saying that as a Catholic he's not allowed to receive them from a female priest. (Cox is actually a deacon, not a priest.)
"She was real nice," Kovacs said. "She had a real nice prayer."
The Ashes to Go concept began in St. Louis in 2007 and has spread to other states. Churches in Amesbury and Fall River were also scheduled to offer outdoor ashes yesterday, Cox said.
Not everyone was pleased to come upon a religious ceremony in a public place. One woman went up to Cox and said the whole thing made her "uncomfortable."
"I suggest you ask people if they're Christian first," said the woman, who then rushed off to catch her train.
"It's valuable to think about," Cox said of the woman's objection. "Is it invitational or does it cause grief to people? Everybody has a different perspective."
Walker said they were not stopping people to offer the ashes, just letting them know about the opportunity as they passed by. An MBTA spokesman said the agency's customer service department received no complaints about the setup.
"We're a very laid-back denomination," Walker said. "We don't push ourselves on people. We're not proselytizers, but we want to go where the people go."
Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2675 or by email at pleighton@salemnews.com.
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