St. Anne’s Feast, Bukit Mertajam, Penang | Food, travel, recipe & sights

St. Anne’s Feast, Bukit Mertajam, Penang

Church of St. Anne
(the green robe is the statue of St. Anne and in the background is Mother Mary carrying baby Jesus)

Once again, it is the annual pilgrimage to the Church of St. Anne’s in Bukit Mertajam to honour the grandmother of Jesus. Annually, throngs of Catholic Christians and even non-Christians will make their way to St. Anne. The special part about it is some of them are non-Christians and yet, they believe St. Anne will help them to grant their wishes. Even my mother-in-law who was a Taoist visited St. Anne’s church annually when she was alive.

I am a Catholic and we honour St. Anne as Jesus’s grandma. We will ask St. Anne’s to pray for us and expressed our problems, hearts’ desires or wishes and hope St. Anne will help us to bring them to Jesus. Well, to put it simply, St. Anne is our middleperson. We do not pray to her. We ask her to pray for us. Very much like when we have problems, we ask our friends to help us to pray. I hope this is not too confusing because I know many people thought that we go to pray to St. Anne.

Church of St. Anne

This is the older part of the St. Anne’s church. It looks very majestic at night as it is on a little hill. From now, July 20th till July 29th, 2007, the church is like a fair ground. I urge you to make a trip there to see for yourself the faith of the people. I am always very humbled when I see the old, the sick, the young, the poor and people from all walks of life paying homage to St. Anne.

There has to be something very special about her because you can feel the faith of these people. I am shy to admit that though I was converted to a Catholic four years ago, I have yet to know St. Anne on a personal basis. I hope to be close to St. Anne one day.

The pieta

Meantime, I am very close to Jesus and seeing all these life size statues on the grounds of St. Anne’s church will give me a very sombre feelings. You should visit and see for yourself these life size statues. It shows the journey of Jesus from the moment He was sentenced to death, the struggles He had to endure, the beatings and taunting until the moment He was nailed to the cross, taken down and carried by Mother Mary. The above is The Pieta or a scene where Jesus was dead, in Mother Mary’s embrace.

Jesus on the cross

Over the weekend, I hope to be able to make it to St. Anne and take some better photos. Last year, it was raining when I got there. I wish to take photos of the Stations of the Cross. (the link will take you to all the stations)

Oh yes, remember the victims who perished in the bus accident and say a little prayer for the families. These are pilgrims from Ipoh who were on their way home from Bukit Mertajam and they were involved in a bus accident and many of them died.

And God bless you all.

Posted by lilian on July 20th, 2007 under Information

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2 Responses to “St. Anne’s Feast, Bukit Mertajam, Penang”

  1. Terence Says:
    July 26th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

    If a person is closer to Jesus, isn’t it more appropriate & effective to pray direct to Him instead of requesting His grandma to do so?

  2. lilian Says:
    July 26th, 2007 at 5:20 pm

    Terence - Good question. That’s what I bugged my course facilitator with when I took the RCIA (a year’s course before one can be baptised as a Catholic). I too asked, if I want something, why not I go to the ‘boss’ direct. But apparently, it is the private preference of the devotees because maybe they feel closer and more open to a matronly figure like Mother Mary or St. Anne and they open up better with their pleas. Which in turn, they believe their prayers will be brought up to God Himself. Just like how Kuan Yin has her followers and people turn to her instead of Lord Buddha. The woman’s touch, to put it simply.

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