Catholic students in Geneva dress up for All-Saints Day parade

Students at St. Peter School in Geneva had a celebration at school this week, to which many wore costumes.

It just wasn't Halloween.

Thursday, the Catholic school had its first All Saints Day costume parade.

Children in first through fifth grades dressed up as a variety of Catholic saints. Kindergartners all were angels, wearing white T-shirts with wings drawn on the back. Preschoolers wore crowns marking themselves as saints, including a "St. Brianna" and a "St. Hannah."

There was a really tough-looking St. Joan of Arc, outfitted in plastic armor and helmet, lots of St. Francis of Assisis, and several Blessed Kateri Tekakwithas, an American Indian woman who has not been beatified yet. St. Joseph carried a square, as befits a carpenter, and St. Stephen wore a crown of stones, because he was stoned to death.

All children attended the 8:45 a.m. Mass, where the priest discussed what a saint was. The costumed ones then paraded past parents, grandparents and parishioners into the school gym, and each child stepped proudly up to a microphone to announce which saint he or she was.

The children also studied the saints in their classrooms. Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders are working on presentations about the saints.

The celebration was the idea of the Home-School Association.

But kids did get to celebrate Halloween with their school buddies at an outing Sunday at Fox Valley Ice Arena, said Kathy Green, a spokeswoman for the association.

In the Catholic Church, All Saints Day commemorates those individuals who have been beatified by church officials. It is followed on Nov. 2 by All Souls Day, which commemorates all the faithful deceased, including our friends and relatives.

"This is really neat," said Tina Trch, the parish's business manager, watching the children as they led the congregation in the Litany of the Saints during Mass.

School officials and parents hope the event will develop students' sense of their Catholic identity. They believe Jesus Christ's glory is reflected in the saints, and that saints' lives serve as examples of how all Christians should live their lives.

Kids could go with their name saint, or if they didn't have one, choose whoever they wanted. They didn't always have the most spiritual motives.

The third-grade version of St. Catherine of Siena, Colleen Cahill, picked her because "My grandmother's name is Catherine."

Classmate Grace Loberg picked St. Eulalia because "I thought she looked pretty." St. Eulalia became a martyr at age 12 when she pleaded with a judge to stop forcing Christians to worship false gods.

Another third-grader, Riley Wise, said he liked St. Patrick "because he became a bishop."