A Church that celebrates culture

Malaysians are blessed to have cultural experiences all year round, owing to the many cultures that exist and thrive here.

Feb 18, 2023



Last month, Malaysians may have been surprised to observe Catholic churches being decked in decorative lanterns, plastic ‘firecrackers’ and simple stapled angpow packets. Many parishioners, including non-Chinese, dressed in bright coloured cheongsams and red samfus.

Most churches also distributed blessed oranges, some along with red packets.

Some parishes with a larger Chinese crowd even had lion dance performances outside the compound!

Just a week before that, in many churches again, these same parishioners would have been outside the same compound, stirring bubbling pots of rice cooked with milk and jaggery, in elaborately decorated earthen pots, shouting Ponggal O Ponggal! as their ancestors in Tamil Nadu did for generations. While many may find it a little odd, Catholics in this country have long observed these celebrations alongside Gawai and Kaamatan, the thanksgiving harvest festivals of our Sarawakian and Sabahan brethren, respectively.

In Melaka, the Eurasian Catholics observe Intrudu, a water festival just before Lent, which may be alien to others who are used to a quiet weekend before Ash Wednesday, or Fiesta San Pedro, which pays homage to the Portuguese heritage as fishermen, and to their patron saint.

So why do Malaysian Catholics find it normal to celebrate three harvest festivals, boatblessing and a couple of new year Masses, despite it having not being particularly marked for any Biblical or liturgical significance?

A Malaysian Catholic identity
Being in a diverse country like ours, the Church takes on the characteristics of its congregation — occupational, socio-economic and of course, cultural. Some of these, like Ponggal, have its roots in a worker’s celebration of harvesting grain, when India was a more agrarian society, which eventually got absorbed and re-interpreted as a festival of thanksgiving. Similarly, Chinese New Year is also now observed as a form of thanksgiving and reunion of families, even as the Julian calendar replaced the lunar one.

Malaysians are blessed to have cultural experiences all year round, owing to the many cultures that exist and thrive here.

Likewise, we have adapted a uniquely Malaysian experience of being the Catholic Church, blending local cultural experience seamlessly into our shared faith experience — thanksgiving, fellowship, mutual respect and tolerance.

Joyous affairs like weddings too, include these cultural practices. An Indian Catholic wedding could include a thali or mangalsutra alongside the traditional wedding rings.

Similarly, when mourning, some Indian Catholics observe a cultural vegetarian fast for between a week and a month, usually breaking it coinciding with the novena prayers after the death of a loved one.

This ostensibly extends to communities we play host to, as well.

Churches like the Cathedral of St John the Evangelist in Kuala Lumpur (and several other parishes) hosts migrant communities, particularly from the Filipino and Myanmar community, adding their own flavour to celebrations like Christmas and Easter.

This collective experience produces a uniquely Malaysian Catholic experience and identity.

Catholicism’s cultural influence on Malaysia
We too, have left an indelible mark on Malaysia. As we celebrate our Malaysian identity, so are Christians embraced as part of the community, perhaps a bit more so in the Catholic church.

One example are parish feast days. If Spain has Our Lady of the Candle, and Ireland has St Patrick’s, feast days like that of St Anne’s in Bukit Mertajam or St Jude’s in Rawang have become community affairs, with road closures and people of various faiths and other denominations taking part in the procession and prayers. These symbolically animated acts of veneration, peculiar to our faith, allow people to draw close to it, share in a part of it, and draw some comfort or blessing from it, without being tied down with the study of catechism or a more serious profession of faith.

Though simple, it serves as an active bridge into ecumenical and interfaith dialogue and/or even an evangelical tool.

Because of early Christian charity work, mission schools tend to observe holidays such as Holy Week. The same missions provide visibility to Catholic orders and charisms. For instance, though not really venerated popularly within the Church, many Malaysians who went to mission schools would know St Jean- Baptise De La Salle.

Though a minority within a minority here, our impact belies our community size, as we should be known by our fruit (Lk 6:43).

Syncretism vs Adoption There is a rather clear line between adopting certain cultural practices, and practising syncretic belief, like animistic worship or other Gods or spirits. One is encouraged and the other, prohibited. Divination and shamanism are other examples of things to avoid.

Some, perhaps, require a more open mind, like the accepted practice of ancestral veneration, which is still frowned upon by some Catholics as overtly Taoist or Buddhist in nature, some five hundred years after the debate started when the Jesuits in China introduced the idea as being compatible with Catholicism.

What many may not realise, is that these practices are not outright acceptance of another religion, in full or part, but rather, the recognition of the wisdom found in other faiths, compatible with our own, and planted by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. In fact, ancestral veneration in other cultures, such as in the Catholic Church in Zaire, is accepted as part and parcel of the liturgy there, one developed specifically for that country.

Goodness and truth in all faiths can be seen as a means of preparation for us to accept the Gospel (Lumen Gentium 16) As much as our Church is a part of Malaysia, Malaysia is part of our Church.

(Emmanuel Joseph oversees IT as his 9-5 job and from 5-9, he serves a few NGOs, think tanks and volunteer groups. He serves as an advisor for Projek Dialog and is a Fellow with the Institute of Research and Development of Policy.)

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