BecauseAnna: August 2014

Heya!
This post is all about my trip to Penang for St. Anne Feast day along with my friends. It's a journey of pilgrimage.

Okay, for catholics and christians, they might know what's St Anne feast day.

So for those who didn't know,

From wikipedia:
St Anne's Church, Bukit Mertajam is a famous Roman Catholic church located in Bukit Mertajam, Penang, Malaysia. It is one of the parishes in theDiocese of Penang. Its annual celebration of the feast of St Anne regularly attracts over 100,000 pilgrims from Malaysia as well as neighbouring countries like Singapore, the Philippines and Australia. The celebrations lasts for 10 days, and includes the actual feast day on 26 July.

Catholic student society mandarin group had organized a 2 day trip to St. Anne Bukit Mertajam, i joined. But i did not bring my DSLR, haha, it's a waste i know, but i heard many saying it's dangerous to bring it there due to some pick pockets.

Anyways, my friend lent me a selfie stick for the journey, i gotta say, selfie stick IZ DA BOMB! It really fits everyone inside.

Feast day are celebrated for patron saints, to remember their death and celebrate their birth into heaven. :)

We agreed on wearing red together because as a group, it's not so easy to get lost in the crowd. Of course, we took the bus, and chatting, sleeping, listening to music, bonding all the way from Perak to Penang.

group selfie:

We stopped by a restaurant, because everyone was hungry, and do you know another reason we go to Penang? FOOD. As all Malaysians know, Penang is food heaven, not just i agree, everyone agrees. WHO DOESN'T?

First eating stop.

Then we stopped by halfway to visit our first church of the day. Look at the structure of the building, look at the design...

This mother Mary statue holding baby Jesus is widely known by the locals as "black Mother Mary"
黑圣母

Here's St Anne, and also Mother Mary as a little girl. St. Anne looked really motherly right? Yeah, she is truly a motherly person. She grant wishes to people.

Father giving sermons and also introduce us to the history of the church.

Groupfie.

Another groupfie.

After that, we continue our journey to the main reason for our trip that day - St. Anne, Bukit Mertajam.
Once you arrive there, you can see there's actually a road block, and once u enter the road block area (which was mainly to block the cars) because this celebration last for 10 days... you can see rows and rows of stalls by the roadside, mainly sold by indians, 70% were hindu clothings 20% foods and 10% of other stuff like candles, toys, souvenirs...

Here's the old church. Once u enter St. Anne, this would be the first church you see. I've been here years ago along with my family. We've prayed inside, ask for our wishes to be granted.

The first thing we did when we arrive there was to go for confession, confess our sins. We were told that major sins will be forgiven if you go for confession before mass, and after confession (when you go for mass) ask for forgiveness. Then your sins, no matter what, (idk about killing raping and all lah) will be forgiven, because God is merciful. :) And St. Anne will help you.

I went for it.

After confession, we went for the mass. We were all super sweaty by that time, hot wet smelly and sticky. Because from morning until afternoon, plus all the heat and the amount of people, there isn't time and place to chill.

With le coursemates, catholics friends, and besties.

Fr. Aloysius Tan was the father that conducted the mass that day.

Then basically after mass, we just slacked around, did the station of the cross and walk around St. Anne. Oh, did i mention, they provide free food from morning until night? The father said the church served 20,000 people in the morning until afternoon, and is expected to serve more in the night. (and he is right, the amount of people attending and visiting st. anne is too damn high) This is how merciful and graceful St. Anne is.

Those people standing in a straight line behind us are those that got their wishes granted. According to an uncle that we met there, he explained to us that these people either recovered from their sickness, or gained back their eye sight, or got better business, got pregnant etc etc, they came back to thank St Anne, and also to collect donation, putting down their status and be just like a beggar. I totally salute them, and respect them, even 12pm in the afternoon where the sun is scorching hot, they still stood there, sweaty and hot, they collect donation, without complaining.

Free food at night, roti canai and dhal. Did you know? There's so many volunteers and so many food, they never ran out of supplies, they just kept preparing serving and giving. People kept coming, they're efficient, hurt, fast, and good. I totally salute the volunteers that is so selfless giving.

Mass at night, it's drizzling, luckily not raining heavily, and the mass was conducted outside the church. Can u imagine? The amount of people is not enough to fit inside the church that it has to be conducted outside. And a bishop was in charge of the mass that night. It was english mass.

Can you see the amount of people that night?

Then, after walking around, we decided to climb the hill up to the place where in the history they said there were other chapels built up there before this church. But it was burnt down, in idk when..

Remember i said those people that got their wishes granted? Well, the volunteer uncle brought us to the office, and let us see all those votive offering items which they received every year in the box. People make GOLD in the form of legs, hands, heart, lungs, kidneys etc etc organ-like GOLD and even BABIES (most women will ask for St. Anne's help to conceive, and a lot got their wishes granted) and they donated it to the church as a form of thank you.

Fact: St. Anne in hebrew means "favor" or "grace"
She is also known as
1. Comfortress of the sorrowing
2. Mother of the Poor
3. Health of the Sick
4. Patroness of the childless
5. Help of the pregnant
6. Model of Married women and mothers
7. Protectress of widows.

Now you know how important it is to pray to St. Anne, a lot of women who are finding trouble to conceive will turn to her, no matter who you are, what religious you're in, it's okay to ask for her help, she help everyone selflessly.

And more on silver.

Here's day 1. Then we went to Kulai church to stay for a night before the next day, mass at sunday at St. Anne's church again.

Those people who want to return their favors as a form of thank you are also there the next day when we arrive.

After all the holy stuff and pilgrimage stuff, of course, we had to visit Penang since we're already there. So we just walked around some famous tourist spot and took pictures like real tourists. LOL.

Groupfie. So villagy-romantic right?

And then while we were travelling from one place to the other in the bus, my friend saw this really lonely foreigner, haha, then he tapped on the window to wave at him, and told him to take a selfie with us. He took out his phone!! LOL.
Then we all sticked our face to the window practically ( i swear the bus got heavier sideways) and took a selfie with us before the bus started moving again. LOL we laughed so hard.