Sister Eloise Rosenblatt

Will we ever be finished with the problems of Adam and Eve in the garden? Eve seems to get the blame, and through her, Eve-women are forever, supposedly, the cause of having brought evil into the world.

That Ash Wednesday, I was cunning. After Mass, before the bell rang for start of school, scores of students, boys, girls, grade levels all mixed, rag-tagged into four lines in back of church, then rambled up the center and side aisles to get their ashes.

We can romanticize the response of Samuel. He hears a call in the night and responds, “Here I am.” The standard spiritual reflection is, “How can I respond to the call of God? How can I be obedient like Samuel?”