Rodney Guerra

I'd like to thank all of you for praying for our student, Rodney Guerra who died on Sunday.  Rodney drown while swimming in the river Sunday afternoon.  He was in 10th grade at our school.



There were two heart wrenching moments at the funeral and burial.  One was the sobbing and wailing of his mother.  I hear the worst loss is that of a parent losing their child.  At this point in my life I don't know what it feels like to be a mother and I can't even imagine what parents go through when their child dies, especially in a tragic accident when he's only 15.


The other moment was at the end of Mass.  They chose to sing our school song as the recessional and the words of the song have never been so powerful as they were at that moment.  Seeing his friends carrying the casket out with tears streaming down their faces is something I hope never to forget.  This was a sad and yet somehow empowering moment, in the midst of this tragedy I could see the fruit of our school in the lives of the students.  The students, especially his close friends, are grieving, as they should be, but... they are not lost... the know the Truth, they have faith, and they are stronger than I ever noticed before.

Here are the lyrics to our school song:

Our Lady of Mt Carmel School Song

The time has come to join our hands.  To hold our hearts and lift them high.  To walk the path that leads us to heaven.  To win the victory of our lives. 

The battlefield is harsh and real swear and tears have watered the field.  Our spirit grows towards the light of heaven, we’ll fight beneath our lady’s shield. 

A crusader am I with Mt Carmel pride, I’ll hold on to the cross and my flag.  We will seek the truth and we’ll walk in the light, with our mother our lives will go on. 

Every battle we fight against the evil one, the light of Jesus will be on our side.  We will run the race, holding hands real tight and a victory we will have on high. 

Every step we take, we take with God.  Every race we run we run with God and victory we will have on high. 

I don't know that I've ever been more proud to say I teach about Mt Carmel High School, more proud of my students and the amazing adults they are becoming.  Our students are blessed to attend a school like Mt Carmel and our faculty and staff are blessed to work at Mt Carmel.  I'm so happy we can pray in school, not only that we CAN pray, but that we DO pray.  Monday morning the whole school met to pray a Rosary together.  Classes continued like normal, except for Rodney's class of about 30 boys, they prayed more together, wrote letters to his family, made sandwiches for the wake that night, and went to visit his parents at their house.  The school counselor was is available to them, of course and the chapel on campus was open and the students were permitted to go in for some quiet time whenever they needed to throughout the day.  I was the teacher assigned to be in the chapel for most of the day and as I watched them come in, put their head down, cry and pray and grieve and then go back to class after half an hour or so, I realized what an amazing place this is.  What a beautiful thing it is that the students can grieve, what have we lost by allowing them this "distraction" from their class time that day?  They lost one day of school, and what did they gain?  SO MUCH.  I thank God for the gift of prayer in school, I thank God for the gift of educators who have their priorities straight, I thank God for a school where these students feel safe, helped, protected, and comforted.  As the school song says "Every step we take, we take with God.  Every race we run we run with God and the victory we sill have on high." 

Please continue to remember Rodney, his friends, and his family in your prayers.  Thank you so much, and God bless you.