(as extracted from chuckyleong.blogspot.com)
[Click on thumbnails for larger photos!]
Fr Erbin's Final Mass & GII's Potluck
Bible Quiz - 31 July 04
How lovely on the mountains are the feet of Him
Who brings good news, good news!
Announcing peace, proclaiming news of happiness
Our God reigns! Our God reigns!
What an exciting day it was yesterday...
1)was supposed to go the Tan Tock Seng to join in some additional short
case tutorial - Didn't go
2)was supposed to practice some tennis at 11am at Ocean Park - rained
out
So I just slept in and woke up in time for lunch and some studying. At
3.45pm, Jon Lim and Jeremy Chia came 45 mins late to prepare our sausage
cocktails for the potluck, and we ended off by testing our knee jerks
with the tendon tappers haha.... Jon is super hyperreflexic! Haha...
We then took a cab down and reached the choir room at
4.40pm (Sorry Gen!). Poor Gen was soooo flustered... understandably so
since all of us who were supposed to be there at 4.30pm for our pre-pre-mass-prac-reflection
were late! Practice turned out to be super hectic, with Fr Erbin
coming in to practice the Kyrie and the Gloria with us for mass later.
Should have seen Fr Erb's face after he sang the gloria for the 1st time....
he totally ran out of breath, so we told him to sing it fast and brightly.
And our beloved soprano section was reduced to 2 singers (which miraculously
ballooned to 7 at the start of mass).
Mass!
We taught the congregation the kyrie and psalm before mass. Melvin
gladly told the congregation to imagine him as the priest and
respond to him for the kyrie (something which Fr Erb used during his homily
to hint to Mel and other young men, that they might wanna consider the
priesthood as their vocation hehe).
Fr Erb dedicated his homily and mass to Fr Pierre Barthoulot &
for vocations. He shared about his close relationship with Fr Barthoulot
as an altar server at IHM (thru' confession of course!), and how Fr Bartholout
changed him and inspired him to become a priest. The incident of note
was during one confession, after countless others; when a 14-yr old Fr
Erb asked Fr Barthoulot why he continued to believe in him and forgive
him. Fr Barthoulot said that he was there to give the mercy of God, and
at that moment Fr Barthoulot became Christ for him, a sinner. Fr Erbs
then exhorted us to always go back to God no matter how much we've sinned
and how sinful we think we are. Our crosses may be hard to bear, but combined
with Jesus and His greater cross, we can fight the good fight, and run
the race. Fr Erbs also called on parents to facilitate the development
of their children's spiritual life... that they shouldn't be the ones
hindering potential vocations.
The rest of mass was beautiful and overwhelming. Behold
the Lamb, Blest are they, Open my eyes, Our God reigns... a masterful
selection by Gen =)
Potluck Quiz!
After mass, we prayed as a choir, led by Joanna.
We then promptly proceeded to 3 Sea Ave to spread out
our buffet of buffets. And a what a beautiful and grand
spread it was! We had an opening prayer, and when Fr Erbs came we said
grace and began the feast! Fr Pat also made a nice pop-by to taste the
food and meet us. Coincidentally, the youth council was also having a
potluck meal at the RCIA room, their Bottom's Up! Follow Up! Go Holy Fam
Youth!
At 8.15pm the LeaderSheep
- Our Organisers - June, Andrea, Duane, Joanna,
Jeremy Oh, Alvin Sr, began the bible quiz; we had already
been divided into groups and created our own grp names -
#1 - Marilyn, Adrian Lim, Marcus,
Samantha, Anthony Foo, Jasmine
Poh Choo Pills - Daphne, Gen,
Jonathan Chia, Justin, Noel, Darryl
Dumpty - Sandrine, Brandon,
Cheryl, Dione, Jonathan Lim
The Bold & the Beautiful - Melvin,
Priscilla, Gerard, Jeremy Chia, Dominic Setiawan, Jared
5-Star Kitchen Lice - Marissa,
Melina, Darren, Elden, Shannon, Alex, Alvin Jr
The 4 catergories were Old Testament, Gospels,
Catholic Church Traditions & GII History. After the 1st 3
rounds of grp questions (plus many steals from other groups), we had the
speed rounds.... fastest raiser first! We answered questions
on the
1) OT abt Moses, Kings Saul, David & Solomon,
Job, Joseph, Samson, Psalms
2) Gospels abt Zacchaeus, the sending of the 72, the
Transfiguration
3) Church abt Divine Office, pre-mass fast, Franciscans,
Dominicans & Carmelites, respect for the Tabernacle & the Altar
4) history of GII - founders, 18th anniv, website details
haha and many many more!
Since this was an open book quiz, some teams prepared notes and brought
old GII chronicles, to gain an edge.
We were laughing and enjoying ourselves so much, it
felt so much at home. There were many quotable quotes and hilarious jokes.
Some examples:
1) Mel's answers to "what have we learned?"
= "we lose; the first shall be last, the last shall be first!"
2) Team #1 was led by Poh Choo, but Team Poh Choo Pills was not!?
3) Speed responses: Qtn: Who wrote the book of psalms?
- Gen:"King David"
- Marcus:"But it wasn't entirely written by King David"
- Elden:"Then who else? Must be David Haas!"
NB: Don't ask me why, but we just all laughed in unison after that.
4) Elden to Jeremy Oh:"You're the best, you da marshmallow man!"
Jeremy:"Yes!" (pause) "No!"
Team #1 won (how aptly named!), but
since they answered the bonus question too, they were tasked to clean
up the food with the losing team (the bOld & the Beautiful)
LOL!!!
We ended off a wonderful night under the stars and under
the fireworks of the NDP preview with Jeremy's exhortation & prayer:
For
us the bible is not very impoprtant in our lives, due to the fast pace
and hectic lifestyle. BIBLE simply means "basic
information before leaving earth". It is the guidebook
to heaven. God gave us the freedom to choose, so he gave us the ten commandments
so we can choose to live the way he wants us to. This guidebook gives
us the freedom to choose our path, which is to choose whether we want
to go to heaven. In this quiz we saw the cool side of the bible and also
how each bible story holds an important lesson for each and everyone of
us. We need the bible in our lives, to be
better Christians and to lead the life that GOD taught us to."
Amen Jeremy! Amen!
