Saints Alive:

A Family's Perspective

            It was a cool and dark Saturday night when the Kaller family arrived at St. Mark’s Parish in Candiac for the “Saints Alive”evening last November 8th.  They had spent time earlier that day looking up Saints on the website and assembling costumes together from items in their home and from previous occasions.  It was just after Hallowe’en, so the fun of dressing up was still in all of their minds.  Imaginations and newly found knowledge helped them to think about what lives these Saints must have lived.  Most of all, the children were surprised at how many Saints they could find listed through the youth ministry website --  Saints with many different stories and life situations.

            Jaclyn, who was celebrating her 7^th birthday that same day, had chosen to dress up as Mary, mother of God.  This gave her a chance to dress up one of her favourite dolls as Baby Jesus!  Samson, 8 ½, had decided to go as Saint Joseph.  As a very active boy, he enjoyed the “stick”staff that accompanied his costume and felt that he knew Joseph’s story pretty well, especially after his Faith First sessions.  Martin, age 10, had looked up the patron saint of Altar servers, Saint Tarcisius, and dressed up as an Altar server.  Mother Susan, went as the blessed Kateri, whom she had learned much about during last year’s Diocesan pilgrimage to the shrine in Kahnawake.  Dad dressed as St. Francis, who had always been one of his favourite Saints and also his middle name.  It was a lot of fun to see the others dressed up there that night and to hear their stories.  The children were very happy to receive a reward for their costumes: they shared the prize of an illustrated book of Bible stories.  Other costume winners were Mary Magdalene and St. Luke. 

            What else did Jaclyn, Samson and Martin like about that evening?  There was lots of snack food and fun prizes for various games such as “halo toss,” “pass the water,” and a “feel and guess” table that brought various items from various Saints’ lives into mystery boxes.  The music was great, and most of all it was a wonderful time together with others from St. Mark’s and St. Gabriel’s Parish.

            They would like to thank Marina Bresba, Cory Labrecque, the judges (Father John, Ethel Gravelle, and Debbie Bartlett) and all the other youth and “young at heart” that participated in this event.  It was a lot of fun!

            ~ The Kaller Family

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