Basic Information Before Leaving Earth
- Fr Erbin's final mass & 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 shouldnt 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 lfestyle. 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. Thus this guidebook is giving us the freedom to choose our path, which is to choose whether we want to go to heaven. Sometimes the bible can be meaningful, and in this quiz u saw the cool side of the bible and also each one holds a very important lesson for each and everyone of us. We need the bible in our lives, to be better christians and to lead a life that GOD taught us to."
Amen Jeremy! Amen!
