Our God-Fearing Little Girl

God-fear·ing –adjective
1. deeply respectful or fearful of God.
2. (sometimes lowercase) deeply religious; pious; devout.

During Mass, our priest invites the children up to the altar during the liturgy. He is very good at engaging them in banter and asking them questions about the Gospel, and the kids all seem to love it. Kate enjoys going up there about 50% of the time, usually only when we are seated on the aisle and she can still see us from where she sits.
Yesterday, she trotted down to the altar per usual. It was crowded, and our church is very old with only one aisle down the middle, so we couldn't see her. The Priest starts his sermon about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, when he stops mid-sentence and asks a child at the front: "Are you OK? Do you want to go back to your seat? Where is your Mummy & Daddy? Who is the Mummy of this pretty little girl with the pink ribbon?" Then I hear a loud sniffle that I recognize as belonging to my offspring, and raise my hand, hoping that she'll see me and make her way back to our pew. But she stands there, petrified, while Father encourages her to walk back to me. Finally, I stand and walk down the aisle to the front and scoop her up. Meanwhile, the Priest is silent, the congregation is silent, and all eyes are on me & Kate, who insisted on wearing her Frosty the Snowman sweater yesterday, even though it is March. I agreed, thinking no one would really see her in it. Uh-huh.

When we get back to our seat, Kate announces is a very loud voice: "Mommy, I scared. I scared of JESUS".