All Saints Day

Cathedral in Monreale, Sicily

Today the world wide church celebrates All Saints Day and Italy has a national holiday. Throughout the day the children's hymn "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God" has been in my mind. It is one of the favorite hymns sung at Mustard Seed School during the month of November. It is also the playful recessional on November 1st at the Church of the Holy Apostles in New York.

I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green;
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and his love made them strong;
and they followed the right for Jesus' sake
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast;
and there's not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn't be one too.

They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes or at sea,
In church, or in trains or in shops or at tea,
for the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too.

Lyrics: Lesbia Scott


Vincenzo and I are singing in the Interntional High School Choral Festival here in Rome this weekend. Today was busy with rehearsals and a mini-concert at the opening reception of the Mediterranean Association of International Schools Conference. It has been fun working with 50 high school students from Marymount and St. Stephen's Schools here in Rome, as well as kids from Tunis and Lisbon.