All Saints' Eve Party!
Alright, if you missed this, because you thought you had better things to do with your night on Hallowe'en, YOU WERE WRONG!
Yeah, so last night was our hallowe'en "alternative" party. Although, really, having an All Saints' Eve party really isn't an alternative to Hallowe'en, since Hallowe'en is short for "All Hallowed Evening". "Hallowed" is "Holy" like in the "Our Father": "Hallowed be Thy Name." So "All Hallowed Eve" is "All Holy Eve", and "Saints" means "Holy Ones". So in actual fact, "Hallowe'en" is in fact the alternative to the ancient pagan holiday "Samhain". If you want to know what the heck I'm talking about, read the post below this. If you want to hear about the awesometastic Hallowe'en party, read on!
So from 6:00pm-9:00pm last night, we had a party in the Parish Centre at St. Andrew's Church. Shortly after 6, when most of the people who were coming (8 came for the whole night, and 4 others were there for part of the night, plus Melissa and I. I think that's a pretty good turn-out, especially considering the competition!) I opened with a word of prayer asking God for a fun and safe night, and then read Hebrews 12:1-2:
After that, I read to them "The Martyrdom of Polycarp" to realise just what some of these "Cloud of Witnesses" had gone through, knowing that they were watching and praying for us in Heaven now. After that, we began the party with candy and chocolate and chips. We'd planned various activities and had great prizes for the winners. The first of these was "The Great Saint Search". Melissa (my wife, if you're new here) and I looked up 8 random saints online, and prepared brief biographies on them. Then we drafted a list of 20 questions. We hid the saint bios throughout the parish centre, and the one who got all the correct answers first won. (The saints, if you are interested, were St. Anne, St. Polycarp of Smyrna, St. Gregory the Great, St. Catharine of Sienna, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Joan of Arc, St. Thér?se of Lisieux, and, of course, St. Andrew the Apostle.
The winners of the Saint Search were Dez and her friend Mike, who each received $2 of Tim Horton's gift certificates (If someone had done it solo and won, they would have got the whole book of $5).
Later, we had a Pumpkin-Carving contest. The winners were the sister-brother team of Monica and Stephen S, who carved very beautifully, "I <3 Greg" into their pumpkin. How could I turn that down? (Actually, the other team copied that idea, but Monica and Stephen's pumpkin was much more aesthetically pleasing). For their troubles, they received $2 each of McDonald's gift certificates.
Throughout the night, we asked Bible Trivia questions, and the one with the correct answer received a Hallowe'en-sized chocolate bar. We also drew some door prizes, and Steve F. won a hackey-sack with a glow-in-the-dark shock sensor. Monica got a cool magnetic pad. But the ultimate door-prize was still to come, as was the best costume award.
Later in the night, we played a "Christianised" and All Saints appropriate rendition of the wink-murder style game, "Mafia", called "Persecution". The scenario is that the players are Christians in the Early Church, which is being persecuted by the Roman Empire. The Emperor (not actually a player) has hired two spies to infiltrate the Christian Church and betray Christians to him to be executed. The Bishop of the church has the responsibility to protect his flock, and must root out and excommunicate the spies before all the Christians have been martyred. At the beginning of the game, everyone's heads are down in the circle, and the narrator (who has the pleasure of describing the glorious manner in which the saints were...united with Christ) selects the spies, and then selects the Bishop.
Then the spies select one of the Christians to report to the Emperor. Once they put their heads down, the Bishop looks up and tries to select a spy to excommunicate. Then everyone brings their heads up and the narrator tells of the manner in which the Christian singled out by the spies meets his or her demise. After that, if the Bishop guessed right, then one of the spies is excommunicated. (If he guesses wrong, that segment of the round is skipped.) The whole church responds to the martyrdom by selecting a member within the ranks and asking the Bishop to excommunicate that one. In this way, if you guess right, both spies could be caught right away! But if the people guess wrong, then an innocent Christian is excommunicated. Then everyone's head goes down and the cycle repeats until either all the Christians are executed or until the two spies are excommunicated. The fun is in the narrator's story-telling. And, last night, just as in the real world, the Church never lost!
At the end of the night, we awarded Dez with the best-costume award for her portrayal of St. Maria Gorretti, a teenager in the early part of last century who was stabbed numerous times for her faith in Christ. Dez received a $5 gift card to Second Cup.
After that, we awarded the grand door prize to Joe, who received a $20 gift card to HMV!
The party was a blast, and is now an annual tradition at St. Andrew's Church!
I'll add pictures later!
Yeah, so last night was our hallowe'en "alternative" party. Although, really, having an All Saints' Eve party really isn't an alternative to Hallowe'en, since Hallowe'en is short for "All Hallowed Evening". "Hallowed" is "Holy" like in the "Our Father": "Hallowed be Thy Name." So "All Hallowed Eve" is "All Holy Eve", and "Saints" means "Holy Ones". So in actual fact, "Hallowe'en" is in fact the alternative to the ancient pagan holiday "Samhain". If you want to know what the heck I'm talking about, read the post below this. If you want to hear about the awesometastic Hallowe'en party, read on!
So from 6:00pm-9:00pm last night, we had a party in the Parish Centre at St. Andrew's Church. Shortly after 6, when most of the people who were coming (8 came for the whole night, and 4 others were there for part of the night, plus Melissa and I. I think that's a pretty good turn-out, especially considering the competition!) I opened with a word of prayer asking God for a fun and safe night, and then read Hebrews 12:1-2:
With so many witnesses in a great cloud all around us, we too, then, should throw off everything that weighs us down and the sin that clings so closely, and with perseverance keep running in the race which lies ahead of us. Let us keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which lay ahead of Him, He endured the cross, disregarding the shame of it, and has taken His seat at the right hand of God's throne.
After that, I read to them "The Martyrdom of Polycarp" to realise just what some of these "Cloud of Witnesses" had gone through, knowing that they were watching and praying for us in Heaven now. After that, we began the party with candy and chocolate and chips. We'd planned various activities and had great prizes for the winners. The first of these was "The Great Saint Search". Melissa (my wife, if you're new here) and I looked up 8 random saints online, and prepared brief biographies on them. Then we drafted a list of 20 questions. We hid the saint bios throughout the parish centre, and the one who got all the correct answers first won. (The saints, if you are interested, were St. Anne, St. Polycarp of Smyrna, St. Gregory the Great, St. Catharine of Sienna, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Joan of Arc, St. Thér?se of Lisieux, and, of course, St. Andrew the Apostle.
The winners of the Saint Search were Dez and her friend Mike, who each received $2 of Tim Horton's gift certificates (If someone had done it solo and won, they would have got the whole book of $5).
Later, we had a Pumpkin-Carving contest. The winners were the sister-brother team of Monica and Stephen S, who carved very beautifully, "I <3 Greg" into their pumpkin. How could I turn that down? (Actually, the other team copied that idea, but Monica and Stephen's pumpkin was much more aesthetically pleasing). For their troubles, they received $2 each of McDonald's gift certificates.
Throughout the night, we asked Bible Trivia questions, and the one with the correct answer received a Hallowe'en-sized chocolate bar. We also drew some door prizes, and Steve F. won a hackey-sack with a glow-in-the-dark shock sensor. Monica got a cool magnetic pad. But the ultimate door-prize was still to come, as was the best costume award.
Later in the night, we played a "Christianised" and All Saints appropriate rendition of the wink-murder style game, "Mafia", called "Persecution". The scenario is that the players are Christians in the Early Church, which is being persecuted by the Roman Empire. The Emperor (not actually a player) has hired two spies to infiltrate the Christian Church and betray Christians to him to be executed. The Bishop of the church has the responsibility to protect his flock, and must root out and excommunicate the spies before all the Christians have been martyred. At the beginning of the game, everyone's heads are down in the circle, and the narrator (who has the pleasure of describing the glorious manner in which the saints were...united with Christ) selects the spies, and then selects the Bishop.
Then the spies select one of the Christians to report to the Emperor. Once they put their heads down, the Bishop looks up and tries to select a spy to excommunicate. Then everyone brings their heads up and the narrator tells of the manner in which the Christian singled out by the spies meets his or her demise. After that, if the Bishop guessed right, then one of the spies is excommunicated. (If he guesses wrong, that segment of the round is skipped.) The whole church responds to the martyrdom by selecting a member within the ranks and asking the Bishop to excommunicate that one. In this way, if you guess right, both spies could be caught right away! But if the people guess wrong, then an innocent Christian is excommunicated. Then everyone's head goes down and the cycle repeats until either all the Christians are executed or until the two spies are excommunicated. The fun is in the narrator's story-telling. And, last night, just as in the real world, the Church never lost!
At the end of the night, we awarded Dez with the best-costume award for her portrayal of St. Maria Gorretti, a teenager in the early part of last century who was stabbed numerous times for her faith in Christ. Dez received a $5 gift card to Second Cup.
After that, we awarded the grand door prize to Joe, who received a $20 gift card to HMV!
The party was a blast, and is now an annual tradition at St. Andrew's Church!
I'll add pictures later!
Labels: Hallowe'en, Saints, St. Andrew's
posted by Gregory at 10:31 a.m.
5 Comments:
Hi Jamie (no, to everyone else, I'm not talking to no one. Someone posted leaving their email, so I deleted the post to protect their privacy). I emailed you already, so you know.
Thanks for stopping by.
God bless.
I saw the comment you left regarding my "ignorance" on cj freemans site. Thanks for that. Perhaps I am biased, but so are you.
Well, rereading it, I don't see much there that I need to apologise for, except perhaps saying that I "appreciated" Chris' "thrashing."
When I refer to your ignorance, I do not mean that as a whole you are an ignorant person in the perjorative sense, like my father would use it.
Rather, I was referring to your lack of understanding of Catholic doctrine. I call it ignorance simply because you teach against it even though you don't grasp its meaning, and second, when you are corrected on that, you continue to teach it.
Of course we are both biased. Everyone is. The difference is that I am not misrepresenting your beliefs in order to argue against them.
I appreciate the discussion. I enjoy the debate. But if you refuse to understand what the Church actually teaches about herself, instead of building up a caricature of it, the debate cannot go anywhere. In the end, if you can't meet your opponent, but have to build paper tigers, it simply demonstrates to your readers that your position is indefensible.
I don't mean to be rude about it, but when all is said and done, you can talk with all the flowery polite words you can think of, but if you misrepresent my beliefs, you aren't actually debating me.
That's why Chris was offended, and that's why I was offended.
Jacob,
I have a response coming to you soon. Things are just a little tight around here waiting for my wife to pop open with our third child, and trying to make a living.
Patience, friend.
Christopher J. Freeman
I just wanted to note again, the All Saints' Eve party was a huge success!
I think it's a testament to righteousness that we can get together and have a fun time without needing to be intoxicated or debaucherous.
The world tries to tell us that the only way to have fun is to find an escape.
Jesus promised us life in abundance--and I'd rather live that abundant life sober and aware of every second!
Christopher! "Pop open with another child"?! You're terrible! LOL
Congrats, btw! I expect a new post at Bona Fide about it when the day comes!
God bless!
Gregory
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