Halloweeeeen

When I look back on my extremely tiring week last week with 2 presentations, one essay submission and the Halloween / Saints of Mercy exhibition, I'm not sure how I did it, but I thank God haah that I'm still alive, for the people who prayed for me, and the calm I felt.

Take away the witches, the devil, demons, commercial parties and candy from Halloween, and its an essentially Catholic tradition because it forms a 3 day celebration that begins with the Eve of All Saints Day (Hallow / Holy Eve), All Saints Day and ends with All Souls Day. This year we had to decorate rooms with info about the Saints of Mercy and to link it to works of Mercy.

I got assigned St Catherine of Siena and burying the dead, and I had completely no idea about what to do, just that I wanted everything to be joyful!! Cuz death despite the pain can still have so much joy in it y'know, to think about a life well-lived, to think about how much the deceased person was such a big part in your life, to think that they're in heaven now or at least that much closer to God, that brings me joy now.

Friday night, after submitting my essay late, I rushed to Church and got 2 of my catechism class kids to help me fold origami butterflies. We ended up spending over an hour folding an entire packet, and they were like "Nat, my hands are really tired now, I can't fold anymore" HAHAHA. After they went home, I stood in my room trying to decide how to set everything up cuz I didn't have a plan. Nada.

The other catechists were so incredible!!! Someone created a grotto out of brown paper cuz their saint was St. Bernadette Soubirous (of Lourdes Fame) and it was so beautiful (': it really looked like the real thing, others made prison bars cuz their work of mercy was to visit the imprisoned, and I had nothing except butterflies and fake grass HAHA. A lot people helped me though, to try to make things as pretty as possible, but my table was still empty, I didn't have any info on St. Catherine and like I was so stressed cuz it was 11pm and the exhibition was going to be open to the p3 - p6 kids at 2pm the next day.

Super grateful though, cause my friends stayed in yew tee so they gave me a lift home! After which I bathed, and sat down and had a conversation with Jesus about what to do. And I realised that I'd been trying to do everything myself, so God kept sending me people my way to help me, and that I hadn't actually asked him what he wanted me to do which was why I was so stressed.

But then, the image of how the room should be set up came so clearly to my mind: The drawing of purgatory as the illustrator of Dante's Inferno had drawn it, butterflies all around, and the cross propped up to remind everyone that Jesus was at the centre of it all, and the activity was to have people write a good memory of their loved ones (dead or alive), and just simply, to thank God for this person (:

Slept at 5am that day to prep stuff and ran back in the morning to start decorating. One of my kids came back to help me even though it was Saturday, and she had such good ideas and helped to make everything so pretty (: I was so grateful for her!!

And the finished product: