Hail Queen of Heaven

Hail, Queen of heav'n, the ocean star.
Guide the wand'rer here below!
Thrown on life's surge we claim thy care.
Save us from peril and from woe.
Mother of Christ, Star of the sea,
Pray for the wanderer. Pray for me.

O gentle, chaste, and spotless Maid,
We sinners make our prayers thro' thee.
Remind thy Son that He has paid
The price of our iniquity.
Virgin most pure, Star of the sea,
Pray for the sinner. Oh, pray for me.

Sojourners in this vale of tears,
To thee, blest advocate, we cry.
Oh, pity our sorrows, calm our fears.
And soothe with hope our misery.
Refuge in grief, Star of the sea,
Pray for the mourner, Oh, pray for me.

And while to Him Who reigns above
In Godhead one, in Persons three,
The Source of life, of grace, of love,
Homage we pay on bended knee:
Do thou, bright Queen, O star of the sea,
Pray for thy children, pray for me.

We sang this hymn in Mass this morning; it remains one of my favorites because it is simple, yet so beautiful in its simplicity. The tune is also one of those lovely old tunes that is actually singable, as opposed to some of the hymns that made their way into church hymnbooks in the 1960s and 70s that are atonal and so difficult to follow that even people like me, who read music well, have a hard time following the tune, never mind the general congregation.

Today was the first day of Sunday School at our parish. Rather than be a helper in my mom's class occasionally as I've done for the last few years, I am "on my own" as a substitute teacher and I had the 3rd grade class, a class of 14 children. It was great to work with these children again, as I had worked with them when they were in the first grade in my mom's class. I did the introduction to the class for the teacher, who was getting her daughter moved into college for the first time, then read them a story about St. John Marie Vianney, since this is the Year of the Priest. We talked about what it meant to be a priest and why St. John was such a good role model for parish priests. After that, which was the end of her lesson plan, I looked at my watch and realized that there was almost 25 minutes left in the class and I had nothing for them to do. However, I've watched my mom improvise for years, so I knew that the best thing for me to do was think of something simple and quick--we played Catholic Hangman. That sounds pretty gruesome, but it was my own version of the spelling game where someone thinks of a word for the group to guess; as they guess letters, the correct ones are written down and the wrong ones earn the guessing team one more body part (head, torso, arms, legs, etc--I usually make it pretty complicated when I'm playing with small children--it gives them more of a chance to win :) ). If the word (or words) are completed before the man is completely drawn, the guessers win and if not, the thinker wins. Anyway, with my kids, I started out simple with "priest." They got it pretty quickly, so I challenged them (or so I thought) with "eucharist"--they got that one pretty quickly too, although the "u" near the beginning made them keep guessing "q," which made me laugh a little. We then moved on to "Saint John Vianney," which stumped them for a while, but eventually they got it. Finally, my trump card was with "Monsignor W-------" our pastor's name, which took them until half the class had been picked up to guess. It was a fun hour and I look forward to going back next month! Next week, I'll have a combined class of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade boys... stay tuned!

One sweet anecdote from this morning: there is a little girl in the class who has Downs Syndrome. I had worked with her before, so she was comfortable with me, but I know that she couldn't guess the letters like everyone else, so I had to come up with another way for her to participate. When it came to her turn, I would lean down and whisper a letter into her ear for her to repeat back to me. I wasn't sure how the other kids would react to this, but I thought it was important for her to be included. One of the boys, a child that I already knew was sweet, started cheering for her every time that she gave me a letter (of course I gave her letters that were in the puzzle--I didn't think it was fair to give her wrong letters): "Yay S---! She's really helping us win! Aw, man! She keeps getting the right letters!" It made me so happy to see her beaming at his praise; I didn't get a chance to tell his dad what a great kid he has, but I definitely will the next time I see that family at church.

In other news, this was an interesting weekend. I decided on Wednesday that I am definitely going to apply to graduate school for the fall; by Friday night, I had Carolina and Catholic on my list as definite places to apply, but the rest... it was all so overwhelming. It culminated in, after I got off work and came home to my roommates going out, sitting down at my computer screen and freaking out, sitting there, home alone (the only reason I mentioned them going out; that's not really my thing, so I was totally cool with that, until I had no one to cry to), sobbing because I was so overwhelmed. So I closed up my computer, packed a bag, and showed up on my back porch at 11:30 at night, tears rolling down my face (yes, I sobbed all the way home; I really probably shouldn't have driven, but I wasn't thinking straight), and sat down next to my poor confused father to cry it all out. Once I had composed myself, we talked and I decided that I'm only going to worry about those two schools because they are the ones with the programs that I like. It is wonderful to have family to go home to whenever I need them.

Speaking of graduate school, I need to go study for the GRE. Fun times :) But really, I wouldn't have it any other way