Merry Christmas! QCCC Christmas Cell 2016

Hello! It has been a while! Congratulations to everyone for getting through their exams, and now it's time to relax and enjoy Christmas.

Here are a few snaps from our fun-filled Christmas Cell that took place on the Friday of Week 12!

Look at our food-filled pot-luck! 

These Earl Grey cookies were a hit!

Escargot, our classic QCCC Christmas Cell dish.

After our semester sharing, and our fabulous dinner, we continued onto our next activity: Secret Santa!

Secret Santa was definitely one of the highlights of our night... and we got to Skype in our special guest, Viki!

Apologies for the poor camera quality! However, nothing can mask the happiness that we felt while we celebrated the end of the semester together. :) Thank you to all of our members for joining us every week. We're very happy that we all got to know each other a little better, but most importantly, that we grew in faith as a family. 

Special shout-out to Amanda and Raewyn, our newest members that were exchange students for the semester! It was a pleasure to have you guys join our QCCC fam! We'll miss you guys a lot! Come back to Kingston to visit us sometime. :) 

And with that, QCCC would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. Come back and join us in 2017... we're going to have a blast. ♡

Netflix and The Bible

Last Friday, we held our first Netflix viewing night. "The Bible" is a successful miniseries with 10 episodes, that originally premiered on the History Channel. It got great reviews, and as Christmas is coming up, we decided to watch the episode that focused on the birth of Jesus Christ.

"Hope" is the 6th episode of the miniseries, and we got to see what life was like before the birth of Jesus, and precisely what Jesus had to go through. Spoiler alert: it's pretty graphic, and not for the faint of heart, but it's definitely worth a watch. If you guys do catch an episode or the entire series, you should compare this adaptation of the Bible to others available!

After our group discussion on the dramatic episode, a few of us headed out to iTea, one of the many bubble tea shops available downtown. Kingston has come a long way since the opening of Classics Tea Lounge!

This Friday, we're having Christmas Cell at Newman House! It's our annual tradition to celebrate the end of the Fall term and of course, the birth of Jesus (it's never too early to celebrate that!).

Come and join us! We'd love to see you all :)

QCCC: HOTPOT NIGHT!

Last Friday, we did something that we've never done before at QCCC.... HOTPOT NIGHT! The temperatures have been dropping as December is nearing, so we decided to do a "hotpot potluck" at Newman House!

 Look at the table full of food and our happy QCCC fam!

We had a pot full of different types of meat (including bacon!), various types of noodles, dumplings - the works!

Our first hotpot night was a success and it definitely warmed us up by the end of the night. Definitely join us tomorrow night for a movie and popcorn, at  Room 20B at Stauffer Library! See you then! :)

All About Them Saints

Last week we hosted a cell featuring many Saints in honour of the celebration of All Saint's Day on November 1st. We hosted a game of Jeopardy that focused on Saints, Miracles, Martyrs and more! 

Look at those scores! We definitely had knowledgeable teams playing, with Team St Thérèse winning the final round of Jeopardy (which required both teams to bet all their points on a single question)!

After the intense game, we relaxed with our snacks, and it was special because these particular snacks represented various Saints. Our members brought in chips to represent Mother Teresa, onion rings that resembled Saintly Halos, Goldfish crackers as St. James' Fish, and so on.

It was definitely a fun and tasty cell to honour some of our favourite Saints. Come join us tomorrow night for our POT-LUCK/HOTPOT NIGHT at 7PM (at our usual spot, Newman House). :)

Crown of Roses

In honour of October being the Month of the Rosary, we decided to do a feature cell on our dearest Mother Mary last week.

For the first activity, we had to piece together parts of sentences of various special facts about Mary. Fun fact: If you didn't know, The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary herself, and not the conception of Jesus!

Deep in thought....

*promo for our cool sweaters*

After our 'puzzling' activity, we shared our personal anecdotes about what the rosary meant to us, and connected over the joys of praying the rosary. For the past week, our live it out challenge was to pray the rosary, and to ponder on how our relationship with Mary helps us grow closer to God.

Since we had a cell that focused on Mary and the Rosary, this week we're focusing on All Saints Day as it will be celebrated on November 1st. So, come join us tomorrow night at 7PM, for a night "All About Them Saints"! ;)

QCCC Social: Homecoming Concert!

For Homecoming 2016, we decided to do something a little different for cell. Dan School of Drama and Music held a Showcase Concert at the BEAUTIFUL Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, so we decided to have our first QCCC Social Night of the year by enjoying classy performances by our talented peers. 

As the Isabel is situated by the lake, we had a spectacular view to start off the night....

And inside, it looked a little bit like this....

Okay, it actually looked like this....

Isn't it absolutely gorgeous?! We're definitely going to come back sometime....

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As an added bonus, the Symphony Ensemble ended off the night with an orchestral arrangement of..... the Oil Thigh! Hope everyone enjoyed homecoming as much as we did!

Come join us for our next cell, this Friday at 7PM, at our usual spot! See you then! ;)

Miracles on 192 Frontenac St.

This week, we decided to journey back in time to a time when miracles occurred! 

For the first activity, we sorted definitions about miracles in order of most to least importance and watched testimonial videos on people who had experienced miracles in their lives. The next semi-physical activity of the night required our members to choose sides of the room depending whether we think certain situations and scenarios (given on the little sheets of paper) are miracles.

Hilarious conversations and reasonings came up, and we all got to learn more about what it means for an event to be considered as a miracle!

As per our weekly cell tradition, we ended off the night with lovely singing from our members!

It's crazy to think that next week is already Week 5 of the school year, and we've only just started to settle in. Unfortunately we do not have a cell for this Friday, as Thanksgiving is around the corner... but we'll definitely be around NEXT Friday. Come visit us then! :)

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving from our little QCCC family!

Always thankful for the support and the love. ♡

First Official Cell: Fellowship of the Ring...s!

Did someone say FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING? This week our cell was slightly.... Lord of the Rings themed! We had a fun activity that required teamwork to journey to Mount Doom in order to bring our rings to the glorified glass bowl. We had our rings and our members (who each had various challenges and responsibilities) journey on the fuzzy blankets to reach our goal.

 

LOOK ITS THE RING(S)!

One of our members had a balloon between her legs and had to cross the whole way through to Mount Doom without dropping it! Talk about skill!

Almost to the end!

So why did we choose Fellowship of the Rings as our theme? That is because we wanted to focus on what makes QCCC so important to all of us, and what it means to be in a fellowship.

I spy with my little eye... words on a white board that have to do with the meaning of "fellowship"!

Oh deer, just look at that masterpiece!

So we have discussed and agreed, that fellowship is an important part of any group, but especially in our little QCCC family. We learned that there are 3 types of people we find at fellowships: mentors, peers and mentees. Having these people in our lives enrich our knowledge of the faith, and we grow together. Heres to many more moments and opportunities to grow together in faith. ♡

See you guys at our next cell! ♡

Open House: Welcome Home! ♡

After a week of various recruitment events while tanning under the sun at Sidewalk Sale to give FREE HUGS, we finally had our Open House Cell at our home away from home, Newman House!

We started off the night with our usual "weekly" sharing as we got to catch up with each other on our respective summer adventures.

Our first activity was an icebreaker that involved a beautiful blanket as our curtain, and we had everyone split on two teams to learn each others names!

Waiting for the curtain to drop....

THE BIG REVEAL!

We also played Telestrations and definitely got a lot of laughs out of the final products of each sentence... This game is essentially broken telephone but through drawings and sentences. For example, we had one sentence that said "Do you want to build a snowman?" and at the end of the round, it evolved into "Olaf got impaled"! 

Everyone was hard at work, drawing and writing to present to the next person!

The sharing of the final sentences is the best part of the game!

As with our annual tradition of Curry Fish Balls, we sang "Shine Jesus Shine" and our star song, "Only Hope" for Singspiration! We definitely had an amazing time with our new members joining our little "home and away from home", QCCC family. ♡

♡ WELCOME TO THE FAMILY! ♡

WYD 2016 Krakow: Blessed are the Merciful

This is the event that we had been waiting for years - the World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow,  a grand opportunity for millions of young Catholics worldwide to discuss, re-examine and celebrate their faith. This year, six members of the QCCC community attended WYD as part of a larger contingent of 30 pilgrims from two Chinese parishes in Toronto (CMCC and SAT).

CMCC-SAT WYD pilgrims gathered at Pearson Airport!

Our first week was spent in the quiet town of Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski and we lived with local host families who hailed from a variety of backgrounds. Nonetheless, all of them had something in common - hospitality and enthusiasm for the Catholic faith. Each day, we had a morning prayer in a different church, before heading out for the day's activities.

Candlelight eucharistic adoration in the town square of
Ostrowiec Sw.

On the first day, we had a Stations of the Cross as we climbed a hill to visit the Basilica of the Holy Cross [relic]. The Basilica's spire offered a picturesque view of the surrounding countryside, which was made even more beautiful by the church's  hilltop location. That evening, we had candlelight Eucharistic adoration in the town square.

Wavin' Flag at the Basilica of the Holy Cross.

The activities of the following days included visits to a flint mine, a concert by Piotr Rubik, one of Poland's most popular contemporary composers, and a visit to the Sandomierz city, a well-preserved Old Town with a castle.

Canadian pilgrims with flags at
Sandomierz!

Visiting the flint mines. The mayor of Ostrowiec also
drops by to say hi.

These events only served as a precursor to a hectic but eventful week in Krakow, three hours away by bus. We celebrated Opening Mass, the Stations of the Cross and the Pope's Welcoming Ceremony in the large Blonia Park on three different nights with over a million other pilgrims, while braving bouts of rain and transit closures. Our daily cathechesis sections took place in the spanking new Tauron Arena, the designated venue for some of the English-language activities; some of the guest peakers included Cardinal Tagle (Phillipines) and Cardinal Timothy Dolan (New York).

Welcome to Krakow! Cool sign found at Rondo G.

A million pilgrims at Blonia Park. The rain could not
dampen their spirits.

What made the events more impressive were the numerous contingents of pilgrims proudly showing off their country flags and trading memorabilia with each other. Not only did we greatly increase our knowledge of country flags, we also had a meaningful time learning about others' cultures and practices.

St Mary's Basilica, overlooking
Ryneky Glowny, the main square
of Krakow.

Six pilgrims with their flags.

All the events in Krakow culminated in an overnight vigil at the massive Campus Misericordiae, which was a 10km walk from our hostel. We set up huge tarps at the campsite along with our sleeping bags, and Fr. Dominic and Fr. Thomas celebrated a minimalist daily mass with us on the tarp. At the conclusion of the vigil, Pope Francis celebrated Sunday Mass and then announced that the next WYD would be held in Panama in 2019.

The pilgrims at the Pope John Paul II Sanctuary.

The group basking in the sun on their sophisticated
network of tarps (and a tent) at Campus Misericordiae.

Candlelight vigil at Campus Misericordiae. Can this get any
prettier?

Even after the events were over, we still had two days to explore the beautiful city of Krakow and also paid a visit to the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Wieliczka Salt Mines, home to an immaculate underground chapel and many memorials, statues and chambers.

St Kinga's chapel in the Wieliczka Salt Mines. This is just
amazing (and 100m underground).

This year's WYD 2016 proved to be a memorable experience that reminded us of the importance and relevance of our Catholic faith. Will you be joining us for WYD 2019 in Panama?