CNY in church

i am now attempting to be like wena of mum-mum or graceshu of you is stupid or killuminati/huai bin of sixth seal (my favourite photo essays bloggers… is that what you call it? photo essays?), to give you a photo essay. very amateurish work so do pardon me for the poor qualities pics. first of all not good at taking photos yet from digicam, secondly not so sure of where (which online site) the best to put up my photos, finally, not good at editing the pictures.

on the first day of chinese new year, i attended mass at my regular church, church of our lady of sorrows at macalsiter road. the church is brightly decorated…as usual, red everywhere! this is a picture of the inside of the church (taken after the mass had finished).

this is a closer look at the front of the church, where the priest celebrate the mass. notice the red altar-tablecloth, the red banner that is hung horizontally, and the 2 red banners hung vertically with some chinese characters on them.

a closer look at the front. normally the altar-tablecloth is white but being CNY, it has to be red.

i attended the mass on the morning of the 1st day of CNY, but there was also a mass on the eve of CNY, which was more elaborate (in mandarin and english, while the morning mass was in english only). at the eve CNY mass, there was a special ceremony called ‘honoring our ancestors’ (or ‘ancestral worship’). an ancestral tablet complete with joss-stick were used. you can see them at this picture.

this ceremony seems to be quite controversial and many catholics are not for it. their reason being, they said, since we use joss-sticks to honour our ancestors (apart from bowing), it look like a buddhist (oops. or is it taoist, wits0?) culture. they argue that if a non catholic were to come to our church and see the ancestral tablet, joss-stick, and other offertory gifts, and everything red, they would have thought they had stepped in a chinese temple instead of a catholic church! but the thing is they don’t understand, after all we are chinese so we should not forget our chinese roots, and it is only right for us to remember our ancestors during the chinese new year, which is a new year for all chinese, irregardless of religion. and we are allowed to use joss-sticks, because we are using it on our ancestors not on ‘another god’. btw, we don’t clasp the joss-sticks to our hands and shake it like the buddhists (taoist?) does when they pray to their god. we just have the joss-sticks stuck in an urn in front of the ancestral tablet. after the ancestral tablet was set up, we had to bow three times to the tablet to show our respect. but apart from bowing to our ancestors, we also bow to the priest, among ourselves and to god! the ‘gifts’ you see next to the ancestral tablet were offered up during the ‘offertory procession’ and they symbolise different things. sorry i did not have the CNY book with me right now so can’t tell you what. also can’t really tell you in detail the ancestral worship ceremony. maybe in a few days time when i get hold of the book, i’ll let you know.

before we dispersed from the mass (before the final hymn was sung), we had the angpow and orange giving cerremony. the angpow and oranges had been blessed on CNY’s eve. the 2 priests stand in front while all of us came up in line to wish the priests, and at the same time, the priest distribute the angpow to us. as we turned to leave after receiving, a warden was at the side to distribute 2 oranges to us. while this was going on, the choir sang ‘kongsi, kongsi’ in mandarin. the angpow packets were bought specially from a church in johor, the st joseph’s church. that’s why you see, the angpow packet has a picture of st joseph with baby jesus in front. oh there is only RM1 in the angpow. as there were hundreds of parishioners (those staying within the church area) attending mass, surely the church can’t give out RM10!! anyway, whatever the amount is not important, as it was just for, as what people like to say “for custom sake”.

sorry i’m not good at taking close-up look. so the picture doesn’t look good. well the tiny words on the right were some verses taken from the bible, the book of numbers, chapter 6, verses 24-26 as follows:
may the lord bless you and take care of you. may the lord be kind and gracious to you. may the lord look on you with favour and give you peace.

after the morning mass finished, we gathered round in front of the church for fellowship and at the same time partake of some CNY cookies. this picture below shows some of the crowd outside the church after the mass finished. to your left is the table where we put up some cookies and drinks.

all the above pictures were taken on the 1st day of CNY after i attended the mass. this next picture though was taken yesterday, to show the front of the church. it was also decorated with ‘chai’ (red cloth banner hung across the main door) across it and 2 plum flowers banners. sorry it was a bit windy that’s why you see the ‘chai’ and the 2 lanterns flying high.

btw, after attending mass on that 1st day of CNY, i adjourned to the nearby fort cornwallis for the chief minister’s open house. good food there but had to queue everywhere to get the food. luckily though the queue moved fast. there was some entertainment there too and we (my mum, sis and i) were lucky enough to get a table facing the stage where we get to see the happenings on stage clearly (though it was a bit far). oh, i did not take any pictures at the open house! how can… when i was busy eating. 😉