How to keep the HALLOW in Halloween AND Ideas for All Saints' Day

This post is inspired by one of my favorite Catholic mom bloggers of all time (Lacy of Catholic Icing and Catholic ABC's preschool curriculum - just got our copy a few days ago, the same day we had our first official field trip to an exhibit on Blessed John Paul II!).

That's me holding our copy of Catholic ABC's! Yahoo! Praise GOD after 1 month plus of waiting!  ;-)

Halloween is just around the corner, and I hope to be celebrating it with our kids in a more meaningful way, compared to last year.

Last year we celebrated Halloween for the first time in the Philippines and the kids went trick or treat-ing at Valle Verde 1, where hubby's aunt lives. ;-) 

Tim was dressed as a knight (I kept telling him he was St. George, but  he didn't quite appreciate it. This year though, he is excited to be dressed up as the dragon-slaying saint, so we'll just be recycling his costume and adding a few more touches. Like a sword and shield maybe.
Rysse was dressed as an angel upon the request of her aunt, hubby's sister (she bought everything!). :-) Don't know if she'll be the same this year BUT if I have my way, I want to dress her up as one of those saints who were royalty. She is after all very fond of princesses now. If not, I would love to have her dressed up as her patron saint, St. Therese of Lisieux!

Borrowing from one of Lacy's posts about Halloween, let's check out what the word HALLOW really means:

Definition of Hallow: Hallow is a word usually used as a verb, meaning "to make holy or sacred, to sanctify or consecrate, to venerate".[1]  The adjective form hallowed, as used in The Lord's Prayer, means holy, consecrated, sacred, or revered.[2] In modern English usage, the noun hallow appears mostly in compounds in Halloween and Hallowmas. Halloween (or Hallowe'en) is a shortened form of All Hallow Even, meaning "All Hallow's Eve" or "All Saints' Eve".[3] Hallowmas, the day after Halloween, is shortened from Hallow's mass, and is also known as "All Hallow's Day" or "All Saints' Day".[4]

Ideas for Celebrating the Feast of St. Teresa (Therese) of Avila

Today (Oct 15) is St. Teresa of Avila's Feast Day. She was a Carmelite nun, like St. Therese of Lisieux. However, based on her biographies like this one from Catholic.org, unlike St. Therese, she did not have a fervent desire to serve God at an early age:

"..she led a fairly ordinary life, though she was convinced that she was a horrible sinner. As a teenager, she cared only about boys and clothes and flirting and rebelling -- like other teenagers throughout the ages."

(I see she and I had A LOT in common when we were younger, haha!) Nevertheless, despite all her faults and struggles, God blessed her immensely, and truly shaped her to be holy and a saint (something we all hope to be one day, right?)

To celebrate her Feast Day today, here is a round-up of ideas from other fabulous, creative Catholic moms, mostly homeschoolers:

1. Make a St. Teresa of Avila Prayer Bookmark from Paper Dali

Ideas for Celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary (Oct 7)

This year's Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary also falls on the First Friday of October - a double reason to celebrate! I am SO excited for our monthly ROCKERs meeting later at the Medela House! We will be treated to an interactive multi-arts and storytelling/ sing and dance along session c/o our friends at My Masterpiece Movement. Yipeee! Praise GOD ;-)

The kids and I will be going to New Manila by taking the FX to the LRT station, then we'll go by LRT (Light Rail Transit, or train in other countries, hehe) to Gilmore St. and walk to Medela House (the Medela Moms Beng and Maricel are Catholic homeschoolers! Awesome!). I'm sure we'll have lots of learning experiences along the way! ;-)

Since it's the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, we will also go to Mass at St. Pio Shrine (at least I am hoping we can!) and try to do one or two of the following activities (which you may want to do too, and don't forget to scroll down for some helpful videos):

- For TeacherMama: read and apply this article on "Exploring Mary and Motherhood"

- Do coloring of the Rosary / Mama Mary pages. The mom behind Family Feast and Feria has taken the time to scan coloring pages of the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries here, and provides the link to the Luminous Mysteries too, which you can go to directly here. There is also a coloring page from Domestic Church here. You can also take a look at the one recommended by Catholic Mom here, Waltzing Matilda here. (Lightbulb moment! We can do this while praying the Rosary too! hehe).

Ideas for Celebrating the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi (Updated with NEW CARTOON VIDEOS!)

When I was younger, especially when I was still a single missionary for Youth for Christ, one of my "idol" saints was St. Francis of Assisi. Perhaps because I could relate to his "troubled" and sinful life as a youth, and later on, as a missionary who gave his all to God, not caring about the material things in life. (Much like one of my other "idols,"  Filipino lay preacher Bo Sanchez!)

However, I have realized since then that what matters most to God is my poverty in spirit and detachment from the material world, and that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be rich, if it is for the right reasons, and to glorify God by helping others. This is especially true if one has a family - there's nothing wrong with wanting to provide for one's kids right?

Anyway, St. Francis celebrates his Feast Day today so here is a round-up of ideas on how to celebrate:

1. Watch videos about his life - Watchknowlearn.org has a good list of videos here. Below is one of the videos, hopefully Tim won't be TOO bored with it as it's meant for 8 year olds and up. hehe! ;-)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk70JUT-QAU]